Story 1: President Trump Approved Sending U.S. Troops To Bolster Saudi Arabia’s Air and Missile Defenses — Videos

Pentagon announces troop deployment to Saudi Arabia

US deploys troops to Saudi Arabia

PBS NewsHour full episode September 20, 2019

Pentagon briefs Trump on military options against Iran

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Iran Attack on Saudi Arabia Oil Not Slowing Aramco IPO

Saudi Arabia unveils new strategic drone program ‘Saqr 1’

Did Satellites Spot a Secret Drone Hangar in Saudi Arabia?

United States sending troops to bolster Saudi defenses after attack

by Reuters

Friday, 20 September 2019 23:57 GMT

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday approved sending American troops to bolster Saudi Arabia’s air and missile defenses after the largest-ever attack on the kingdom’s oil facilities, which Washington has squarely blamed on Iran.

The Pentagon said the deployment would involve a moderate number of troops – not numbering thousands – and would be primarily defensive in nature. It also detailed plans to expedite delivery of military equipment to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Reuters has previously reported that the Pentagon was considering sending anti-missile batteries, drones and more fighter jets. The United States is also considering keeping an aircraft carrier in the region indefinitely.

“In response to the kingdom’s request, the president has approved the deployment of U.S. forces, which will be defensive in nature and primarily focused on air and missile defense,” U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said at a news briefing.

“We will also work to accelerate the delivery of military equipment to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to enhance their ability to defend themselves.”

The Pentagon’s late Friday announcement appeared to close the door to any imminent decision to wage retaliatory strikes against Iran following the attack, which rattled global markets and exposed major gaps in Saudi Arabia’s air defenses.

Trump said earlier on Friday that he believed his military restraint so far showed “strength,” as he instead imposed another round of economic sanctions on Tehran.

“Because the easiest thing I could do, ‘Okay, go ahead. Knock out 15 different major things in Iran.’ … But I’m not looking to do that if I can,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

But the deployment could further aggravate Iran, which has responded to previous U.S. troop deployments this year with apprehension. It denies responsibility for the attack on Saudi Arabia.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which has been battling a Saudi-led military coalition that includes the UAE, has claimed responsibility for the strikes.

ATTACK LAUNCHED FROM IRAN?

Relations between the United States and Iran have deteriorated sharply since Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear accord last year and reimposed sanctions on its oil exports.

For months, Iranian officials issued veiled threats, saying that if Tehran were blocked from exporting oil, other countries would not be able to do so either.

However, Iran has denied any role in a series of attacks in recent months, including bombings of tankers in the Gulf and strikes claimed by the Houthis.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have fingered southwest Iran as the staging ground for the attack, an assessment based at least in part on still-classified imagery showing Iran appearing to prepare an aerial strike.

They have dismissed Houthi claims that the attacks originated in Yemen.

One of the officials told Reuters the strike may have been authorized by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The United States is wary of getting dragged into another conflict in the Middle East. It has troops positioned in Syria and Iraq, two countries where Iranian influence is strong and Iran-backed forces operate openly.

Saudi Arabia has said it was attacked by a total of 25 drones and missiles, including Iranian Delta Wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and “Ya Ali” cruise missiles.

U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said officials were still hammering out the best array of capabilities to defend Saudi Arabia, noting the difficulty combating a swarm of drones.

“No single system is going to be able to defend against a threat like that, but a layered system of defensive capabilities would mitigate the risk of swarms of drones or other attacks that may come from Iran,” Dunford said. (Reporting by Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali, Eric Beech and Mohammad Zargham Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Cynthia Osterman)

Shields and Brooks on the whistleblower complaint, Saudi oil attack

Whistleblower complaint about President Trump involves Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the matter

A whistleblower complaint about President Trump made by an intelligence official centers on Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the matter, which has set off a struggle between Congress and the executive branch.

The complaint involved communications with a foreign leader and a “promise” that Trump made, which was so alarming that a U.S. intelligence official who had worked at the White House went to the inspector general of the intelligence community, two former U.S. officials said.

Two and a half weeks before the complaint was filed, Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian and political newcomer who was elected in a landslide in May.

The Democrats’ investigation was launched earlier this month, before revelations that an intelligence official had lodged a complaint with the inspector general. The Washington Post first reported on Wednesday that the complaint had to do with a “promise” that Trump made when communicating with a foreign leader.

Over the course of three hours, Michael Atkinson repeatedly declined to discuss with members the content of the complaint, saying he was not authorized to do so.

He and the members spent much of their time discussing the process Atkinson followed, the statute governing his investigation of the complaint and the nature of an “urgent concern” that he believed it represented, according to a person familiar with the briefing, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“He was being excruciatingly careful about the language he used,” the person said.

What is a whistleblower: How to be a journalist

Whistleblowers such as Daniel Ellsberg take personal risks to expose wrongdoing. (The Washington Post)

Atkinson made clear that he disagreed with a lawyer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, who had contradicted the inspector general and found that the whistleblower complaint did not meet the statutory definition of an urgent concern because it involved a matter not under the DNI’s jurisdiction.

Atkinson told lawmakers that he disagreed with that analysis — meaning he felt the matter was under the DNI’s purview — and also that it was urgent “in the common understanding of the word,” the person said.

Atkinson told the committee that the complaint did not stem from just one conversation, according to two people familiar with his testimony.

Following the meeting, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the committee, warned of legal action if intelligence officials did not share the whistleblower complaint.

Schiff described acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire’s refusal to share the complaint with Congress as “unprecedented” and said he understood the Justice Department was involved in that decision.

“We cannot get an answer to the question about whether the White House is also involved in preventing this information from coming to Congress,” Schiff said, adding: “We’re determined to do everything we can to determine what this urgent concern is to make sure that the national security is protected.”

Someone, Schiff said, “is trying to manipulate the system to keep information about an urgent matter from the Congress … There certainly are a lot of indications that it was someone at a higher pay grade than the director of national intelligence.”

Trump has denied doing anything improper. In a tweet Thursday morning, the president wrote, “Virtually anytime I speak on the phone to a foreign leader, I understand that there may be many people listening from various U.S. agencies, not to mention those from the other country itself.

“Knowing all of this, is anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such a potentially ‘heavily populated’ call,” Trump wrote.

In a Sept. 17 letter to intelligence committee leaders, Atkinson wrote that he and Maguire “are at an impasse” over how the whistleblower could contact the congressional committees. Ordinarily, a matter of urgent concern that the inspector general deems credible is supposed to be forwarded to the intelligence oversight panels in the House and Senate.

But Maguire prevented Atkinson from doing so, according to correspondence that has been made public. Atkinson wrote that he had requested permission from Maguire to inform the congressional intelligence committees about the general subject matter of the complaint, but was denied.

Maguire, Atkinson wrote, had consulted with the Justice Department, which determined that the law didn’t require disclosing the complaint to the committee because it didn’t involve a member of the intelligence community or “an intelligence activity under the DNI’s supervision.”

Atkinson faulted the Justice Department’s conclusion “particularly … and the Acting DNI’s apparent agreement with the conclusion, that the disclosure in this case does not concern an intelligence activity within the DNI’s authority.”

Maguire is scheduled to testify before the Intelligence Committee in a public session next Thursday.

In letters to the White House and State Department, top Democrats earlier this month demanded records related to what they say are Trump and Giuliani’s efforts “to coerce the Ukrainian government into pursuing two politically-motivated investigations under the guise of anti-corruption activity” — one to help Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is in prison for illegal lobbying and financial fraud, and a second to target the son of former vice president Joe Biden, who is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump.

“As the 2020 election draws closer, President Trump and his personal attorney appear to have increased pressure on the Ukrainian government and its justice system in service of President Trump’s reelection campaign, and the White House and the State Department may be abetting this scheme,” the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees wrote, citing media reports that Trump had threatened to withhold $250 million in aid to help Ukraine in its ongoing struggle against Russian-backed separatists.

Lawmakers also became aware in August that the Trump administration may be trying to stop the aid from reaching Ukraine, according to a congressional official.

Giuliani dismissed the reports of the whistle blower and Trump’s “promise” to a foreign leader.

“I’m not even aware of the fact that he had such a phone call,” Giuliani said Thursday. “If I’m not worried about it, he’s not worried about it.”

House Democrats are looking into whether Giuliani traveled to Ukraine to pressure that government outside of formal diplomatic channels to effectively help the Trump reelection effort by investigating Hunter Biden about his time on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company.

The filing of the whistleblower complaint has led to what veterans of U.S. spy agencies described as an unprecedented situation with potentially grave consequences for the already troubled relationship between the president and the nation’s powerful intelligence community.

It remains unclear how the whistleblower gained access to details of the president’s calls — whether through “readouts” generated by White House aides or through other means.

Memos that serve as transcripts of such calls are created routinely. But if that is the source in this instance, it would appear to mean that White House aides made a formal record of comments by the president later deemed deeply troubling by the intelligence community’s chief watchdog.

Story 3: Federal Reserve Injects Billions Into Economy As Business and Investors Demand for Money Increases — Videos

NY Fed to pump $75 bn into money markets daily through Oct 10

The New York Fed — which handles the levers that control the flow of money in the system — has for the past four days had to pump billions into money markets after bank demand for cash pushed interest rates above the Fed’s target (AFP Photo/Delil SOULEIMAN)

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New York (AFP) – The New York Federal Reserve Bank said Friday it will inject billions into the US financial plumbing on a daily basis for the next three weeks in an effort to prevent a spike in short-term interest rates.

The Fed will offer up to $75 billion a day in repurchase agreements — exchanging secure assets for cash for very short periods — through October 10, it said in a statement.

In addition, it will offer three 14-day “repo” operations of at least $30 billion each.

Banks have struggled in recent days to find the cash needed to meet reserve requirements which has pushed up short-term borrowing rates, prompting the New York Fed to pump billions into US money markets with repo operations over the past four days.

However, in a sign a cash crunch could be easing, demand for liquidity on Friday did not significantly exceed the amount offered, as it had on two prior days.

After October 10, the New York Fed will “conduct operations as necessary to help maintain the federal funds rate in the target range, the amounts and timing of which have not yet been determined.”

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell this week downplayed concerns about the money market’s cash crunch, saying it was not a sign of problems in the wider economy or a concern for monetary policy.

Economists say an array of conditions converged to dry up liquidity in the banking system — including quarterly corporate tax payments and a surge in government debt sold to investors, which drained cash out of banks.

Banks borrow regularly in markets for very short periods, usually overnight, to make sure their daily cash reserves do not fall below the required level. But interest rates increase with demand.

The New York Fed adds or removes liquidity to keep interest rates in line with the desired target, but the cash shortage in recent days prompted it to pump funds into the short-term repo market as rates soared and threatened to break out of the Fed’s target range.

The central bank cut benchmark lending rates interest rate on Wednesday, and also made some technical adjustments to try to keep the market rates from breaking out of the range, including cutting the interest it offers on bank reserves held at the Fed that are in excess of the minimum required level.

Police have moved in and made their first arrests as the largest worldwide climate protest in history arrived in London today with hundreds of thousands of Brits taking part in demonstrations across the country.

Activists, many of whom carried Extinction Rebellion flags and banners, have descended on the capital as the Global Strike 4 Climate Change movement kicked off in the UK to coincide with protests all over the planet.

The Metropolitan Police said two people had been arrested in the Strand for breaching conditions imposed on the protesters which dictate they must gather in a specific place in Westminster, central London.

Schoolchildren, many of them dressed in their uniforms, joined in on more than 200 different climate events in Britain after they were urged to walk out of classes and lectures today.

Politicians have been split on whether or not pupils should be skipping lessons to attend the climate protests, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and mayor Sadiq Khan among those to commend young demonstrators.

Mr Corbyn addressed a rally of climate strikers outside Parliament and praised those who had missed lessons to attend, adding: ‘Thank you for being here to teach me and everyone else a lesson about the environment.’

State school leaders have urged youngsters not to take part, saying they understand the strength of feeling around the issue, but have concerns about pupil welfare.

But Suzie Longstaff, headmistress of the £18,900-a-year private Putney High School in south-west London, said that young people should be able to make their own decisions about whether to take part in today’s action.

Scroll down for video

A protester is arrested by police officers stationed outside outside King’s College London as mass demonstrations hit the UK this morning

A protester is led away by police in handcuffs this morning (shown left), while an Extinction Rebellion activist is shown waving a XR flag outside King’s College London

Two protesters are placed in handcuffs outside King’s College London near the Strand as mass demonstrations kicked off in the capital today

Schoolchildren protest with banners outside parliament in London after youngsters were urged to skip lessons in order to take part in demonstrations

Youngsters take part in today’s climate change demonstrations after thousands skipped lessons and lectures this morning

Thousands of protesters gather near the Houses of Parliament for today’s climate change demonstration, where Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will speak later this afternoon

Police officers carry a protester away in the Strand after issuing section 14 notices amid mass-scale demonstrations in London today

An aerial shot from Central London shows thousands of protesters gathering during one of more 200 events across the UK this afternoon

Scottish comedian Billy Connolly was among those to lend his support to protesters marching in Glasgow this afternoon

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted an image from the protest in London and is due to address a rally of climate strikers outside Parliament, while dozens of other mass-scale events are being held up and down the country

Students carrying Extinction Rebellion banners and flags are shown marching through the streets outsude the Houses of Parliament

Police officers form a cordon outside Parliament Square, as demonstrators were asked to protest in specified areas

A young child looks out at the masses of people who gathered in central London today for the what is expected to be the world’s largest ever join climate change demonstration

Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger was among those to give their support to those taking part in the Global Climate Strike

The Global Strike For Climate in London is being held only days ahead of the scheduled United Nations Climate Change Summit in New York

Hundreds of protesters hold a ‘die-in’ at the UK Student Climate Network’s Global Climate Strike in Cambridge this afternoon

But Ms Longstaff said: ‘Every day we are educating the young people of the future to speak out and make their own decisions.

‘We are trying to provide a modern and relevant education which includes connecting to topics that they feel passionate about. We can’t pick and choose what those are.

‘I’m proud that Putney students have both a social and environmental conscience and I applaud them. Those who feel strongly about protesting will be there.’

Sylvie Craig, 11, and her friend Eva De Pear, 12, both of Shepherds Bush in west London, took the day off school and brought their mothers to the demonstration.

Sylvie said: ‘Climate change is really important. We can’t just talk about it, we have to do something about it ‘

Her mother Bay Garnett, a fashion director, said: ‘I am here for my children and all children. I think every mother feels the same. They need a healthy planet to live on.’

Eva skipped her biology lesson on Friday, saying that going to it made ‘no sense’ because ‘the planet is in real big trouble’. She said: ‘I am here to teach people a lesson instead of learning a lesson.’

Her mother Leila Amanpour said: ‘I feel that unless we come out into the streets, especially the children, the Government is not going to do anything about climate change.’

Thousands of protesters, including hundreds of children, many wearing school uniform, gathered in Birmingham’s Victoria Square before marching through nearby streets.

Young climate strikers across the country (pictured here in Millbank, London this morning) are taking to the streets as part of a global protest to demand urgent action to tackle climate change

Protesters hold banners as they attend the Global Climate Strike taking place outside the Houses of Parliament this morning

A sign posted on the outside of the Ben and Jerry’s store in Wardour Street, London, shows the firm’s support of the climate strikes today

London joins in global Climate change strikes call for action

Workers joined thousands of schoolchildren in taking part in the mass-scale demonstrations in London today (pictured in Westminster)

Medical professionals were shown marching near Westminster holding up banners and homemade signs declaring their support of climate intervention

State school leaders have urged youngsters not to take part, saying they understand the strength of feeling around the issue, but have concerns about pupil welfare

Students hold placards as they attend a climate change demonstration in London this morning (pictured on the lawns outside the Houses of Parliament)

Hundreds demonstrate in Bristol in global climate change strike

London Mayor Mr Khan called on the Government to ‘step up’ action on climate change, adding: ‘I am standing in solidarity with all those who are taking part in the Global Climate Strike.

‘Here in London, City Hall staff have also been encouraged to observe the strike by taking time out of their day to send a message to the world that London demands more ambitious climate actions from governments.’

However business, energy and clean growth minister Kwasi Kwarteng said he could not endorse children leaving school to take part in the protests, which have been inspired by teenage eco-activist Greta Thunberg.

He told BBC Breakfast on Friday that he supports the ‘energy and creativity’ of students, but said time spent in school is ‘incredibly important’.

Jessica Ahmed, 16, who is studying for an International Baccalaureate had emailed her school to warn that she would be walking out on Friday.

Speaking at a protest in Westminster, Miss Ahmed of Barnet, north London, said: ‘There are no excuses in this. School is important but so is my future.

‘If politicians were taking the appropriate action we need and had been taking this action a long time ago when it was recognised the world was changing in a negative way, then I would not have to be skipping school.

‘I would be doing the maths exam I have studied for.

She called on the Government to acknowledge the severity of the climate crisis and for youth to be included in policy-making, adding ‘With so many people striking, surely Government have got to take notice?’

Slogans such as ‘if you breath air you should care’, ‘us snowflakes are melting’, ‘learn to change or learn to swim’, and ‘don’t be a fossil fool’, were among the homemade banners held aloft in the crowd.

Politicians have been split on whether or not children should be skipping lessons to attend the climate protests, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and mayor Sadiq Khan among those to praise young demonstrators

Students carrying Extinction Rebellion banners and flags are shown marching through Parliament Square in central London this afternoon

The protests in central London today are part of a snowballing movement sparked by teenage activist Greta Thunberg’s school strikes outside the Swedish parliament

Politicians have been split on whether or not students should be skipping lectures to attend the climate protests, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and mayor Sadiq Khan among those to praise young demonstrators

As protests got under way across the UK, the Metropolitan Police said two adults had been arrested on The Strand in central London – where XR Universities, an Extinction Rebellion group are holding a protest (pictured)

In Belfast, hundreds of young people took over the Corn Market area of the city centre, where they staged a colourful protest, with speeches and chants, before lying on the ground to participate in a mass ‘die-in’.

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said the school strikers have shown that people power could move governments.

He said: ‘The rest of us now need to step up and stand with the children demanding radical, systemic change, before it’s too late.’

Metropolitan Police announced it had made a couple of arrests relating to protests this morning, adding in a tweet: ‘Two adults have been arrested in the Strand for breach of the S14 conditions.

‘We would ask everyone attending #ClimateStrike please attend Millbank, where in conjunction with the organisers we have created a safe space for protest.’

Missing a day of school for climate protest will hit your child’s exam chances, says UK’s schools minister

British schools minister Nick Gibb said the Government ‘shares young people’s passion’ for tackling climate change, but said children should not miss school to protest.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said schools need to record the absences.

He said: ‘We share the passion, as a Government, of young people for tackling climate change, and that is why this Government and this country is committed to reaching net zero greenhouse gasses by 2050.’

He added: ‘We don’t think it should be at the expense of a child’s education because what we want is for the next generation to be as well educated as possible to tackle these kinds of problems, and you don’t do that by missing out on an education.’

He said even missing out on one day of school can affect GCSE results.

The ‘Global Strike 4 Climate Change‘ rally started in Sydney this morning where Thor star Chris Hemsworth and his young daughter India joined 50,000 in a rally that saw some violent clashes between police and protesters.

Throughout the day the movement is spreading west across the world to most of the planet’s biggest cities including Hong Kong, Bangkok, Delhi, London and New York.

But in China – the world’s most polluting nation – President Xi’s government has banned the movement from protesting in its cities.

In New York, the city’s Department of Education says all its 1.1million schoolchildren can skip class to participate in the strike if they had parental consent – without any fear of punishment.

Miss Thunberg, who has been nominated for a Nobel prize for her climate activism, will spearhead a rally at the United Nations headquarters in the city later.

As the sea of people made their way through the city, some school students on scooters could be seen heading in the opposite direction, while there was some fighting between protesters and police.

Others could be seen scribbling their signs on old pieces of cardboard on the footpath as they waited for the event to begin.’.

Britons joining the climate strikes can expect a day of unseasonably warm weather on Friday as they call on businesses and politicians to cut emissions.

Children and young people are preparing to walk out of lessons and lectures, with hundreds of thousands of workers expected to join them.

The protests are part of a snowballing movement sparked by teenage activist Greta Thunberg’s school strikes outside the Swedish parliament.

It comes ahead of a climate action summit in New York convened by UN secretary general Antonio Guterres to urge countries to up their climate efforts.

Much steeper measures are needed across the globe to prevent temperature rises of more than 1.5C (2.7F) or 2C (3.6F) to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Sydney: A protester clashes with police during the climate rally in the Australian city on Friday before he was arrested and removed from the area

Sydney: Children chanting for change march through Australia’s largest city today as the ‘Global Strike 4 Climate Change’ began

Climate demonstrators shut down Sydney streets

Sydney: In Australia today 300,000 people have taken part including more than 50,000 people in Sydney with Thor star Chris Hemsworth and his young daughter India among those who flooded the streets

Canberra: A baby takes part in the The Global Strike 4 Climate rally with his parents displaying a warning about the extinction of animals in his car seat

Marovo Island, Solomon Islands: Students in traditional dress gathered on the South Pacific Ocean took part in a march along the beach

Bangkok: Marchers in Thailand decided to block the roads outside the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment as they demanded action

Indonesia: Youths walk with signs through the main road during a Global Climate Strike rally as smog covers the city due to the forest fires in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan province

As if to underline the urgency of the issues, the mercury is set to hit 26C (78.8F) this weekend – 8C(46.4F) above average for the time of year.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: ‘It is unbelievable that we should need global strike action for the future of our planet to be taken seriously.

‘The stark reality is that our climate is changing rapidly and we are running out of time to address it.’

He promised strikers his full support, adding that City Hall had been invited to observe the strike themselves.

‘I hope governments around the world who are failing to take action hear the voices of millions of people, young and old, unified in their call for action to save our planet. Our future depends on it,’ he said.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is due to address a rally of climate strikers outside Parliament on Friday, while other events are being held up and down the country.

The UK Student Climate Network (UKSCN) says more than 200 events are taking place across the UK, with – for the first time – adults being encouraged to join the youngsters as they strike.

UKSCN is calling on politicians to bring in a ‘Green New Deal’ to cut the UK’s emissions to zero and improve lives, changes to education to equip youngsters to deal with the climate crisis and votes at 16 to give them a voice.

Bali: People display placards during a rally as part of a global climate change campaign at Sanur beach on Indonesia’s resort island

Dhaka: Bangladeshi students join the protest and claim world leaders are ‘acting like children’ over climate change

Berlin: Activists chose to cycle to block traffic at Ernst-Reuter-Platz square as they take part in the Global Climate Strike

Brisbane: Millions of people from across the globe are expected to walk out of work and school as part of ‘Strike 4 Climate Action’ which will be held in 150 countries on September 20

Sydney: Two young girls climb a pole as thousands gathered in the centre of the city as part of global mass day of action

Sydney: A man clashes with police during the climate rally in Sydney on Friday. He was arrested and removed from the area

Sydney: Parents took their children out of school to take part in the protest. However, acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack said students should be in school as it was ‘just a disruption’

Among the many trade unions throwing their weight behind the strikes are the TUC Congress, the University and College Union and Unite.

Some businesses are actively supporting their workers to take action, with outdoor clothing company Patagonia closing stores and offices globally, and taking out adverts to support the strikers.

The Co-operative Bank has also teamed up with Unite to support its workforce to take part in the climate strikes around the country.

Worldwide, there are more than 4,600 events in 139 countries taking place as part of the Fridays for Future movement between Friday September 20 and 27, and campaign group 350.org says more than 70 unions, 500 organisations and 1,000 companies have come out in support of the strikes.

Muna Suleiman, Friends of the Earth campaigner, said most people wanted to fix the climate crisis but politicians needed to act.

She said: ‘Right when we need our leaders to step up, they continue to let us down.

‘From filling the skies with more planes, to backing fracking in the UK and funding oil and gas projects abroad.

‘That’s why we’re standing shoulder to shoulder with young people to call on our politicians to deliver emergency climate action now. And we’re asking everyone to join us.’

Sydney: The Global Strike 4 Climate will on Friday take place in 110 towns and cities across Australia, with organisers demanding government and business commit to a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2030

Sydney: More than 50,000 people flooded Sydney’s streets as they made their way to the Domain to take part in the demonstration calling for governments and businesses to commit to a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2030

‘Can’t eat money, can’t drink money’: Protesters take to the streets in Sydney as part of the rally which happened across the globe on Friday

Brisbane (left) and Melbourne (right): More than 300,000 Australians have chosen to take part in the Global Strike 4 Climate

In Australia there were hundreds of young people proving their dedication to the cause as they carried artistic placards they had made the night before, which read: ‘Time is almost up’ and ‘There is no Planet B’

Sydney: A young girl sits on a man’s shoulders during the Sydney protest on Friday. She held a sign which read: ‘There is no planet B’

Sydney: Children allowed out of school chant and throw their arms in the air during the world’s biggest planned climate protests

Sydney: Thousands of protesters turned out for the climate strike on Friday. This woman wore green and wrapped a vine around her neck for the cause

Bangkok: Thai people protest in front of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment

Bangkok: Children with megaphones demand their politicians make changes to protect the future of the planet

Nolte: Climate ‘Experts’ Are 0-41 with Their Doomsday Predictions

For more than 50 years Climate Alarmists in the scientific community and environmental movement have not gotten even one prediction correct, but they do have a perfect record of getting 41 predictions wrong.

In other words, on at least 41 occasions, these so-called experts have predicted some terrible environmental catastrophe was imminent … and it never happened.

And not once — not even once! — have these alarmists had one of their predictions come true.

Think about that… the so-called experts are 0-41 with their predictions, but those of us who are skeptical of “expert” prediction number 42, the one that says that if we don’t immediately convert to socialism and allow Alexandria Ocasio-Crazy to control and organize our lives, the planet will become uninhabitable.

Why would any sane person listen to someone with a 0-41 record?

Why would we completely restructure our economy and sacrifice our personal freedom for “experts” who are 0-41, who have never once gotten it right?

If you had an investment counselor who steered you wrong 41times, would you hang in there for number 42?

Of course not. You’d fire him after failed prediction two or three.

And if that’s not crazy enough, the latest ploy is to trot out a 16-year-old girt to spread prediction number 42, because it is so much more credible that way.

Sometimes you just have to sit back and laugh.

Anyway, I want you to have the data, so go ahead and print this out in advance of Thanksgiving dinner with your obnoxious Millennial nephew.

LIST OF DOOMSDAY PREDICTIONS CLIMATE ALARMIST GOT RIGHT

NONE.

ZIP.

ZERO.

NADA.

BLANK

DONUT HOLE

NIL.

NOTHING.

VOID.

ZILCH.

LIST OF DOOMSDAY PREDICTIONS THE CLIMATE ALARMIST GOT WRONG

Here is the source for numbers 1-27. As you will see, the individual sources are not crackpots, but scientific studies and media reports on “expert” predictions. The sources for numbers 28-41 are linked individually.

1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975

1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)

1970: Ice Age By 2000

1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980

Sorry, Experts… Sorry, Scientific Consensus… Only a fool comes running for the 42nd cry of wolf.

Don’t litter, be kind to animals, recycling’s for suckers (it’s all going to end up in the ground eventually), so stop feeling guilty… Go out there and embrace all the bounty that comes with being a 21st century American — you know, like Obama, who says he believes in Global Warming with his mouth but proves he doesn’t with the $15 million he just spent on oceanfront that we’re told is doomed to flooding

(Bloomberg) — It’s time to stop crediting corporate sustainability efforts as acts of altruism. For big business, protecting the environment often means padding the bottom line.

Nike Inc. has come up with a way to weave more efficiently, reducing the raw material and labor time needed to make each shoe. That has kept more than 3.5 million pounds of waste from reaching landfills since 2012. But the good news doesn’t stop with the environmental impact. The company is spending less on transportation, materials and waste disposal.

The shoemaker’s “more environmentally conscious product has been a source of cost savings,” said James Duffy, an analyst at Stifel.

Those flimsy plastic water bottles sold by Nestle SA? The ultra-thin design has a smaller impact on the environment while pushing down costs associated with packaging and shipping. Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc. have poured tens of millions of dollars into a fund that builds out recycling infrastructure, reducing landfill tipping fees and recovering material that could be sold as new products.

Tech giants have spent billions of dollars on solar and wind power, cutting greenhouse-gas emissions and energy expenditures at the same time. Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon and Facebook Inc. are now some of the largest buyers of green power in America.

Turns out it’s not just easy being green—it’s also profitable.

“We’ve moved past this concept that business versus the environment is a tradeoff,” said Tom Murray, who advises companies on reducing emissions at Environmental Defense Fund, including Walmart, McDonald’s Corp. and Procter & Gamble Co. “The business benefits were always there, but more and more companies are going after them.”

The business case for going green has never been stronger as companies find ways to make more from less. Here’s a look at the ways corporate sustainability is making environmentalism pay.

Lightweight Flights Cost Less

United Airlines Holdings Inc. has been making its planes lighter, driving down fuel use and costs. Airlines account for almost 2% global carbon emissions. Not even the in-flight magazine has been spared in the search for unnecessary heft: changing to a lighter paper stock saved almost $300,000 per year on fuel. United redesigned airplane bathrooms, switched out beverage carts and ended duty-free sales. The company was also working on reducing its cabin waste to zero.

What it pays: United has saved more than $2 billion on fuel so far.

Hanging Hotel Towels Saves More Than Water

It turns out that simply asking guests to hang up towels to dry and forego daily sheet changes can save hotel operators 25% off annual energy costs. “To some surprise within the hotel industry, this option was quickly embraced by hotel guests as a small way to engage in energy conservation,” according to a report by the Urban Land Institute. Clarion Partners LLC does that at all of its hotels and went a step further by reducing flows through toilets, faucets and showerheads.

What it pays: Cutting water use saves Clarion hotels about $17,250 per year.

Idle Trucks, Real Money

Walmart runs one of the biggest trucking fleets in the U.S. That means scores of semis standing in traffic at any given time. At that scale, the introduction of technology that reduces energy use when trucks or idling and software that creates more efficient routes can improve fuel efficiency by 90%, reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

What it pays: Diesel averages almost $3 a gallon in the U.S.

Tech’s Green Power Payoff

Google, Facebook and Amazon are among the largest energy consumers in the U.S., and a lot of that power is now emission-free. Each company committed to getting 100% of their power for their data centers from renewable resources such as wind and solar. Exxon Mobil signed up to energize its operations in Texas with solar and wind energy starting next year, which would place the oil producer among the top 10 buyers.

What it pays: With renewables now cheaper than fossil fuels, these green energy commitments shave an estimated 10% off tech giants’ gargantuan utility bills.

Paperless Bathrooms Are Cheaper

Restaurants, movie theaters and others have been making the switch from paper towels to hand dryers in their restrooms for years. Dryers have become the norm because of the savings on the cost of paper towels and the expense of sending garbage to the landfill. Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears, made the switch and cut carbon emissions by 76% per use.

Patrick J. (“Pat“) Michaels (born February 15, 1950) is an American climatologist. Michaels was a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute until Spring 2019. Until 2007 he was research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, where he had worked from 1980.[2][3][4]

A self-described skeptic on the issue of global warming, he is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists. He has written a number of books and papers on climate change, including Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming (1992), The Satanic Gases (2000), and Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media (2004). He’s also the co-author of Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know (2009).[2] Michaels’ viewpoint, as argued in a 2002 article in the journal Climate Research, is that the planet will see “a warming range of 1.3–3.0°C, with a central value of 1.9°C” for the 1990 to 2100 period (a value far smaller than the IPCC’s average predictions).[5]

Contents

Education

Patrick Michaels obtained an A.B. in biological science in 1971 and an S.M. in biology in 1975 from the University of Chicago, and in 1979 obtained his Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[6] His doctoral thesis was titled Atmospheric anomalies and crop yields in North America.[7]

Views on climate change

Michaels has said that he does not contest the basic scientific principles behind greenhouse warming and acknowledges that the global mean temperature has increased in recent decades.[8] He is quoted as being skeptical of global warming,[citation needed][9] and is described by Michael E. Mann as a “prominent climate change contrarian.”[10] He contends that the changes will be minor, not catastrophic, and may even be beneficial.[11]

He has written extensive editorials on this topic for the mass media, and for think tanks and their publications such as Regulation. He stated in 2000:[11]

[S]cientists know quite precisely how much the planet will warm in the foreseeable future, a modest three-quarters of a degree (C) [in 50 years]

All this has to do with basic physics, which isn’t real hard to understand. It has been known since 1872 that as we emit more and more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, each increment results in less and less warming. In other words, the first changes produce the most warming, and subsequent ones produce a bit less, and so on. But we also assume carbon dioxide continues to go into the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate. In other words, the increase from year-to-year isn’t constant, but itself is increasing. The effect of increasing the rate of carbon dioxide emissions, coupled with the fact that more and more carbon dioxide produces less and less warming compels our climate projections for the future warming to be pretty much a straight line. Translation: Once human beings start to warm the climate, they do so at a constant rate.[12]

Michaels has stated in the Wall Street Journal:

Why is the news on global warming always bad? Perhaps because there’s little incentive to look at things the other way. If you do, you’re liable to be pilloried by your colleagues. If global warming isn’t such a threat, who needs all that funding?[13]

A 2002 article published in the journal Climate Research by Michaels and three other scholars has predicted “a warming range of 1.3–3.0°C, with a central value of 1.9°C” over the 1990 to 2100 period, although he remarked that the “temperature range and central values determined in our study may be too great.” He made the argument that the climate feedback system involving current warming trends was weaker than generally asserted, coming to a conclusion that set his views apart from that of the IPCC’s estimates.[5]

In 2009, Michaels authored a Cato report arguing that “Congress should pass no legislation restricting emissions of carbon dioxide, repeal current ethanol mandates, and inform the public about how little climate change would be prevented by proposed legislation.” [14]

In 2018, Michaels asserted on Fox News, “probably about half, maybe half of that nine-tenths of the degree [of total warming] might be caused by greenhouse gases.” Climate Feedback, a fact-checking website for media coverage on climate change, wrote of Michaels’ assertion, “no evidence or research is provided to support this claim, which contradicts the published scientific literature.”[15]

Advocacy

Expert witness for Western Fuels Association

In May 1994 Richard Lindzen, Michaels, and Robert Balling served as expert witnesses on behalf of Western Fuels Association in St. Paul, Minnesota to determine the environmental cost of coal burning by state power plants.[16] Western Fuels Association is a consortium of coal producers that uses collective advocacy to represent industry interests.[17]

1998: Michaels and Balling complaint against Star Tribune upheld

In May 1997 Ross Gelbspan made a presentation in Minneapolis discussing his concerns, documented in his 1997 book The Heat is On, that some climatologists were involved in a “disinformation campaign” to counter the scientific consensus on global warming. The Minnesota Star Tribune ran an editorial praising this as a public service exposing undue credit given to the “unsubsantiated opinions” of a handful of contrarian scientists, and naming Michaels and his colleague Robert Balling as skeptics whose views had been examined and dismissed by numerous other scientists. Michaels and Balling took a complaint against the Star Tribune to the Minnesota News Council, and at a hearing in April 1998 by a 9–4 decision the council “voted to sustain the complaint that the Star Tribune editorial unfairly characterized the scientific reputations of Patrick Michaels and Robert Balling.”[18]

World Climate Report, Greening Earth Society, and Western Fuels Association

The World Climate Report, a newsletter edited by Michaels was first published by the Greening Earth Society. The society was a public relations organization associated with the Western Fuels Association (WFA), an association of coal-burning utility companies.[19][20][21]It has been called a “front group created by the coal industry”[22] and an “industry front”.[23] Fred Palmer, a society staffer, is a registered lobbyist for Peabody Energy, a coal company.[24] WFA founded the group in 1997, according to an archived version of its website, “as a vehicle for advocacy on climate change, the environmental impact of CO2, and fossil fuel use.”[25]

2003 John Holdren

Office of Science and Technology Policy director, John Holdren,[26] told the U.S. SenateRepublican Policy Committee in June 2003, “Michaels is another of the handful of U.S. climate-change contrarians … He has published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science.”[27] In 2009 Michaels responded in a Washington Examiner Op-Ed, saying that the IPCC had subverted the peer review process, and adding the IPCC had “left out plenty of peer-reviewed science that it found inconveniently disagreeable.”[28]

International Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group in 2007

Michaels was one of hundreds of US reviewers composing the International Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group in 2007.

Although the Greening Earth Society was generally skeptical of the impact of climate change, it acknowledged some degree of global warming as real: “Fact #1. The rate of global warming during the past several decades has been about 0.18°C per decade”.[29] Note that the actual increase in the global surface temperature during the 100 years ending in 2005 was 0.74 ± 0.18 °C.[30]

Climate scientist Tom Wigley,[31] a lead author of parts of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has stated that “Michaels’ statements on the subject of computer models are a catalog of misrepresentation and misinterpretation … Many of the supposedly factual statements made in Michaels’ testimony are either inaccurate or are seriously misleading.”[32]

Funding from energy or fossil fuel companies

On July 27, 2006 ABC News reported that a Colorado energy cooperative, the Intermountain Rural Electric Association, had given Michaels $100,000.[35] An Associated Press report said that the donations had been made after Michaels had “told Western business leaders … that he was running out of money for his analyses of other scientists’ global warming research” and noted that the cooperative had a vested interest in opposing mandatory carbon dioxide caps, a situation that raised conflict of interest concerns.[36]

Michaels said on CNN that 40 per cent of his funding came from the oil industry.[37] According to Fred Pearce, fossil fuel companies have helped fund Michaels’ projects, including his World Climate Report, published every year since 1994, and his “advocacy science consulting firm”, New Hope Environmental Services.[38]

A 2005 article published by the Seattle Times reported that Michaels had received more than $165,000 in fuel-industry funding, including money from the coal industry to publish his own climate journal.[9]

Selected publications

Michaels is the author of several books including: Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming (1992), Satanic Gases (2002; as coauthor), Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media (2004), published by the Cato Institute, and Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming (2005; as editor and coauthor).

A mother and her baby have died as Hurricane Florence continues to batter North Carolina, with 18 trillion gallons of rain expected to fall in what one top official called a ‘thousand-year’ event.

The pair were trapped inside their home in Wilmington after a tree fell onto the roof at around 9.30am (ET). Firefighters frantically tried to lift the tree so they could escape, but were unable to do so.

The baby’s father was rescued and stretchered into an ambulance but police declared the mother and baby dead at 2.30pm (ET). National Guard were called into remove the shattered tree.

Florence is currently stalled over southeastern North Carolina, but is expected to drift further inland across the Carolinas on the weekend before turning toward the central Appalachian Mountains early next week.

The dire warnings were echoed by Wilmington Police Chief Ralph Evangelous, who told ABC News: ‘I see a biblical proportion flood event that’s going to occur. I see the beach communities being inundated with water and destruction that will be pretty, pretty epic in nature.’

The eye of the storm smashed into North Carolina just after 7am, with three inches of rain falling every hour and 80mph winds sparking an 11-foot storm surge.

Over seven days, 18 trillion gallons of rain is expected to fall across the Carolinas and Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Maryland. The wind speed has dropped slightly from 90mph when it made landfall to 75mph as of 2pm ET.

A mother and her baby died after being trapped inside their home in Wilmington when a tree fell onto the roof at around 9.30am (ET). Firefighters frantically tried to lift the tree (pictured) so they could escape, but were unable to do so

Fire firefighters use a boat to rescue three people from their flooded home during the Hurricane Florence in New Bern, North Carolina, on Friday

Residents look at downed trees as Hurricane Florence passes over Wilmington, North Carolina, on Friday

Rescue workers rush a man to an ambulance after a giant tree toppled onto a house in Wilmington. The man was injured and taken to hospital

Members of the FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 4 from Oakland, California, and soldiers from the North Carolina National Guard 105th Military Police Battalion from Asheville search homes for evacuees on Friday

This satellite map, captured on Friday at 8am (ET) shows Florence making landfall on the east coast. The outline of the shoreline has been drawn over the image to show the storm’s location

Video playing bottom right…

Florence made landfall near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, at 7.15am. At least 26,000 people sought refuge in shelters in the state and 625,000 homes and businesses were reported to be without power.

More than 60 people including children had to be pulled from a collapsing motel in Jacksonville at the height of the storm, and many more who defied evacuation orders were waiting to be rescued.

The hurricane knocked a basketball-sized hole in the wall of the Triangle Motor causing cinder blocks to crumble and the roof to fall down – while residents were still in their rooms. Fire crews had to force their way in and evacuate the guests to a shelter. None were hurt.

Rescue teams were also working to free around 150 to 200 people trapped in homes in New Bern as city spokeswoman Colleen Roberts warned that the storm surge will increase further as Florence passes over the area.

Some 150 to 200 people have already been rescued after the nearby Neuse River rose by 10 feet high since bursting its banks on Thursday.

The city warned that people ‘may need to move up to the second story’ but told them to stay put as ‘we are coming to get you.’ Some 9,700 National Guard troops and civilians have been deployed, with high-water vehicles, helicopters and boats.

In the besieged North Carolina city of New Bern alone, rescuers by midmorning Friday had plucked more than 200 people from rising waters, but about 150 more had to wait as conditions worsened and a storm surge reached 10 feet, officials said.

Florence’s rain will reach 40 inches in some parts of the Carolinas, forecasters said. Rainfall totals will be similar to those in hurricanes Dennis and Floyd in 1999, Chris Wamsley of the National Weather Service said Friday morning.

‘The only difference is, back then it was within 14 days,’ he said. With Florence, ‘we’re looking at the same amount of rainfall in three days.’

By midday Friday, airlines had canceled more than 2,100 U.S. flights from the storm’s approach on Wednesday through Sunday, according to tracking service FlightAware.

The region’s two largest airports, in Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, had more than 200 cancellations on Friday. That’s about half the flights in Raleigh and one in eight at Charlotte.

Rescue workers pray on the quiet residential street in Wilmington, North Carolina, where a mother and her baby died on Friday

A before and after image of a scene in New Bern on Thursday shows the violent impacts of the storm, which deluged the area with flood waters

A before and after image of a scene in New Bern. Rescue teams were also working to free around 150 people trapped in homes in New Bern

Firefighters were unable to remove the tree from the house in Wilmington on Friday and had to call in the National Guard (pictured)

Volunteers from the Civilian Crisis Response Team help rescue three children from their flooded home in James City on Friday

The volunteers moved the James City children to safety on Friday along a flooded highway. Hundreds of other people have had to call for emergency rescues in the area, officials said

Rescue workers pass the dog back to her owner after they were both rescued from their flooded James City property on Friday

Rescue workers from Township No. 7 Fire Department and volunteers from the Civilian Crisis Response Team use a boat to rescue a woman and her dog from their flooded home in James City on Friday

The members of Township No. 7 Fire Department and the civilian volunteers had a busy night on Thursday after the hurricane hit the area

Residents in this North Carolina town woke up on Friday morning to find a tree had fallen on the roof of a house. The storm is expected to cause $170 billion worth of damage, according to one prediction

The awning of a BP gas station in Top Sall, North Carolina, is blown off as Hurricane Florence makes landfall on Thursday night

Even before Florence hit land, the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported ‘life-threatening storm surge and hurricane-force winds’ along the coast of the Carolinas leaving coastal streets inundated with ocean water.

Like an out of control freight train, Florence entered into Wilmington, a port city of 120,000 people on the North Carolina coast, and started pummeling the city.

The city was plunged into darkness after losing its power grid shortly after 5am during some of the fiercest wind bursts.

Damages are starting to appear as large swaths of the roof of Hotel Ballast, a downtown tourism staple, are being peeled off one by one and sucked out into the sky.

The Cape Fear River, which usually lazies from east to west through the city’s historic district, has been transformed into rapids.

As the day rose on Wilmington, residents discovered extensive damages. There are thousands of trees down in the city’s historic district. Most streets are unpassable as uprooted large oak trees lie across the road.

At this point, the entire city is without electricity as electric lines have been cut off by falling trees and ripped up gutters from homes litter the streets.

Trees bend in the heavy winds as they are enveloped by surging waters after Hurricane Florence hit Swansboro in North Carolina on Friday

People were urged to avoid going out in their vehicles in Swansboro in North Carolina (pictured on Friday) over fears they could be swept away

A resident in New Bern, North Carolina, filmed the inside of their flooded home showing ocean water lapping at their feet as Hurricane Florence made landfall on Friday

Mitchell Floor, left, holds a flashlight as Comfort Suites general manager Beth Bratz, center, and employee Dee Branch go to make coffee as Hurricane Florence rages in Wilmington Friday. 620,000 homes and businesses were reported to be without power as the outer band of the storm approached

John Van Pelt @JVPStorm

Sad to see this damage in Morehead City. There’ll be much more to see when the sun comes up. We have you covered through the night on @WeatherNation#Florence

Footage from television stations and social media showed raging waters hitting piers and jettys and rushing across coastal roads in seaside communities, including Topsail Beach, north of Wilmington, where storm surge waters damaged beachfront homes

Forecasters say the combination of a life-threatening storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline. The hurricane could cause $170 billion of property damage, according to one prediction.

Forecasters say ‘catastrophic’ freshwater flooding is expected over parts of the Carolinas.

But that, combined with the storm’s slowing forward movement and heavy rains, had North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper warning of an impending disaster.

‘The worst of the storm is not yet here but these are early warnings of the days to come,’ he said. ‘Surviving this storm will be a test of endurance, teamwork, common sense and patience.’

Forecasters said conditions will deteriorate as the storm pushes ashore early Friday near the North Carolina-South Carolina line and makes its way slowly inland.

Its surge could cover all but a sliver of the Carolina coast under as much as 11 feet of ocean water, and days of downpours could unload more than 3 feet of rain, touching off severe flooding.

Once a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 140 mph (225 kph), the hurricane was downgraded to a Category 1 on Thursday night.

This graph shows wind speeds in mph at 9am (ET), from the eye of Hurricane Florence near the North Carolina coast to further inland

A map from the National Hurricane center shows the probable path of Hurricane Florence from Friday to Wednesday next week

A map broadcast at 10am ET shows the expected progress of Hurricane Florence from Saturday to early on Monday morning

This National Weather Service map shows the probably wind speeds of the hurricane from Friday to 2am on Wednesday

Wind-whipped waves lash the coast at Wilmington, North Carolina, on Friday. Nearly all residents had evacuated following warnings from officials

Florence’s fiercest winds will linger around the coast for hours since the storm was moving forward at only 6 mph. Pictured: The hurricane arriving at Wilmington on Friday

Visibility is poor around the eye of the storm, as water and other debris are pulled up into the air by the wind, as seen in this image of Swansboro on Friday

Trees sway in the wind as Hurricane Florence moves through Wilmington on Friday, as captured in a video taken by local journalist Raphael Grand

Photos show the South Carolina National Guard readying for the storm. Once a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 140 mph (225 kph), the hurricane was downgraded to a Category 1 on Thursday night

Forecasters say ‘catastrophic’ freshwater flooding is expected over parts of the Carolinas. Disaster relief teams are seen above

Michael Nelson uses a boat made from a metal tub and fishing floats after the Neuse River burst its banks on Thursday

Rescuers head out into floodwaters in New Bern, North Carolina on Thursday night as the area starts to feel the full wrath of the storm

Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital in Jacksonville has a full hallway dedicated for animals of the staff working during Hurricane Florence. It is pictured on Friday

Flamingos are evacuated as a part of Storm Florence preparations at Riverbanks Zoo and Garden in South Carolina

Dolphins were spotted swimming close to the shore in Wilmington, North Carolina, during the storm on Friday

CBS News

✔@CBSNews

Dolphins are swimming near the shore in North Carolina, as Hurricane Florence pounds the coast with intense wind and rain. https://cbsn.ws/2p6nJBJ

Cooper requested additional federal disaster assistance in anticipation of what his office called ‘historic major damage’ across the state.

Officials said some 1.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to evacuate, but it’s unclear how many did.

The homes of about 10 million were under watches or warnings for the hurricane or tropical storm conditions.

Coastal towns in the Carolinas were largely empty, and schools and businesses closed as far south as Georgia.

The top counties affected were Beaufort, Carteret, Craven, Onslow, Pamlico and Pender. Officials fear power losses could affect up to three million people.

In South Carolina, more than 400,000 people have evacuated the state’s coast and more than 4,000 people have taken refuge in shelters, officials said.

Another 400 people were in shelters in Virginia, where forecasts were less dire.

Cooper previously warned: ‘Don’t relax, don’t get complacent. Stay on guard. This is a powerful storm that can kill. Today the threat becomes a reality.’

A wind-damaged roof of the house in the town of Wilson on Friday morning after the hurricane passed over the previous night

A damaged awning at a restaurant in Myrtle Beach on Friday morning after heavy winds ravished the town during Hurricane Florence

Roads and verges in New Bern were strewn with damage trees on Friday morning after they were ripped from the ground by high winds

Several parts of North Carolina lost power after trees fell on power lines. Pictured is damaged vegetation in New Bern on Friday

This tree in Wilmington was left splayed across a road on Friday morning, blocking traffic, after Hurricane Florence ravaged the area the previous night

Wilmington residents had to walk around the uprooted tree on Friday as they waited for workers to come and cut it up

Part of the roof of Tidewater Brewing Co. lies on the ground in Wilmington on Friday morning. Owner Ethan Hall arrived later with team to inspect the damage

Flood waters rage inside the living room of a house in Belhaven, North Carolina, in a photo obtained from social media on Friday

Children sit and play games in a hotel lobby in Wilmington that has lost its power on Friday after damage to infrastructure caused by high winds

Donald Trump speaks during a hurricane meeting on Friday with the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the Oval Office

Prisoners were affected, too. North Carolina corrections officials said more than 3,000 people were relocated from adult prisons and juvenile centers in the path of Florence, and more than 300 county prisoners were transferred to state facilities.

At Frying Pan Tower, an observation post 32 miles off of the coast of North Carolina, a live video feed showed the storm’s 100mph sustained winds ripping an American flag to shreds.

Police have suspended their services in Morehead City and other coastal cities, warning any residents who remain in the evacuation zone that they will be without emergency services until the storm passes.

The storm surge was expected to reach far inland along North Carolina’s flat coastal plain.

‘Storm surge is not just an ‘ocean’ problem tonight. Significant surge is expected to occur in the NC inlets and rivers, some areas in excess of 9 feet!’ the National Weather Service said in a tweet.

At Frying Pan Tower, an observation post 32 miles off of the coast of North Carolina, a live video feed showed the Category 2 storm’s 100mph sustained winds ripping an American flag to shreds on Thursday

Portions of a boat dock and boardwalk were destroyed by powerful wind and waves in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, on Thursday

Waves slam the Oceana Pier & Pier House Restaurant in Atlantic Beach as Hurricane Florence approaches the area on Thursday

Huge waves lashed the beaches of North Carolina on Thursday as the hurricane rolling in bringing heavy rain and dangerous winds

Early storm surges in New Bern caused the Neuse River to flood its banks on Thursday, nearly sixteen hours before Florence arrived

A work truck drives on Hwy 24 as the wind from Hurricane Florence blows palm trees in Swansboro on Thursday

A pick-up truck pulls a trailer along a rainy road in Washington, North Carolina, nearly 16 hours before the hurricane struck the area

A truck drives through deep water after the Neuse River flooded the street in River Bend on Thursday. Officials in some areas urged people not to go out in their car as they could be swept away

Flooding is seen New Bern, North Carolina, after early storm surges caused the Neuse River to burst its banks as Hurricane Florence inched closer to the East Coast on Thursday

A sign warns people away from Union Point Park after it was flooded by the Neuse River in New Bern, North Carolina

The Hotel Ballast on the Cape Fear River was starting to show signs of structural damage (see ceiling) during the hurricane on Friday

In Wilmington, before it took a direct hit from Florence, wind gusts were stirring up frothy white caps into the Cape Fear River.

‘We’re a little worried about the storm surge so we came down to see what the river is doing now,’ said Linda Smith, 67, a retired nonprofit director. ‘I am frightened about what’s coming. We just want prayers from everyone.’

Near the beach in Wilmington, a Waffle House restaurant, part of a chain with a reputation for staying open during disasters, had no plans to close, even if power is lost. It had long lines on Thursday.

In the tiny community of Sea Breeze near Wilmington, Roslyn Fleming, 56, made a video of the inlet where her granddaughter was baptized because ‘I just don’t think a lot of this is going to be here’ later.

Will Epperson, a 36-year-old golf course assistant superintendent, said he and his wife had planned to ride out the storm at their home in Hampstead, North Carolina, but reconsidered due to its ferocity. Instead, they drove 150 miles inland to his mother’s house in Durham.

‘The anxiety level has dropped substantially,’ Epperson said. ‘I’ve never been one to leave for a storm but this one kind of had me spooked.’

In a flash bulletin at 11pm on Thursday, the National Hurricane Center said that Florence was 50 miles south of Morehead City, North Carolina, and 60 miles southeast of Wilmington.

A child sits on a mattress at a Hurricane Florence evacuation shelter on Thursday at Conway High School in Conway, South Carolina

Avair Vereen (left, with her fiance and one of her seven children) and her family took shelter at an evacuation shelter at Conway High School on Thursday. ‘We live in a mobile home so we were just like ‘No way.’ If we lose the house, oh well, we can get housing. But we can’t replace us so we decided to come here’

An American Red Cross aid worker walks through the cafeteria at Conway High School which is being used as a Hurricane Florence evacuation shelter on Thursday

Shianne Coleman (left) and Austin Gremmel walk in flooded streets as the Neuse River begins to flood its banks in New Bern, North Carolina, on Thursday

Linda Stephens checks out the weather as the force of Hurricane Florence is beginning to be felt on Friday in Myrtle Beach

Joyce Lilly, Marshall McNeil and Holly Tindall sit on the porch of their home in Myrtle Beach on Friday as they watch high winds caused by Hurricane Florence

The storm had maximum sustained winds of 90mph and was moving northwest at six miles per hour.

A buoy off the North Carolina coast recorded waves nearly 30 feet high as Florence churned toward shore.

As the storm has slowed upon approach, official landfall – when the eye of the storm reaches the shore – is forecast to occur sometime overnight on Friday.

Winds and rain were arriving later in South Carolina, and a few people were still walking on the sand at Myrtle Beach while North Carolina was getting pounded on Thursday. Heavy rainfall began after dark.

By Thursday night, the window to evacuate much of the North Carolina coast had closed, with officials saying that anyone who had not moved inland would have to shelter in place.

Forecasters said that given the storm’s size and sluggish track, it could cause epic damage akin to what the Houston area saw during Hurricane Harvey just over a year ago, with floodwaters swamping homes and businesses and washing over industrial waste sites and hog-manure ponds.

Men pack their belongings after evacuating their house in New Bern, North Carolina after the Neuse River went over its banks and flooded their street during Hurricane Florence on Thursday

Residents rush to escape as the water rises in New Bern on Thursday after storm surges pushed the Neuse River over its bank

Residents wade through deep floodwater to retrieve belongings from the Trent Court public housing apartments after the Neuse River went over its banks during in New Bern on Thursday

Russ Lewis looks for shells at Myrtle Beach, where conditions were fairly calm before the approach of Florence on Friday morning

Water from Neuse River starts flooding houses on Thursday as the Hurricane Florence comes ashore in New Bern, North Carolina

As Florence drew near, President Donald Trump tweeted that FEMA and first responders are ‘supplied and ready,’ and he disputed the official conclusion that nearly 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico, claiming the figure was a Democratic plot to make him look bad.

‘This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico,’ Trump wrote.

‘If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!’

Schools and businesses closed as far south as Georgia, airlines canceled more than 1,500 flights, and coastal towns in the Carolinas were largely emptied out.

Around midday, Spanish moss blew sideways in the trees as the winds increased in Wilmington, and floating docks bounced atop swells at Morehead City. Some of the few people still left in Nags Head on the Outer Banks took photos of angry waves topped with white froth.

Wilmington resident Julie Terrell was plenty concerned after walking to breakfast past a row of shops fortified with boards, sandbags and hurricane shutters.

‘It truly is really about the whole size of this storm,’ National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham said. ‘The larger and the slower the storm is, the greater the threat and the impact – and we have that.’

The hurricane was seen as a major test for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which was heavily criticized as sluggish and unprepared for Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year.

Residents in Wilmington wait for a table at Waffle House. Though boarded up, the restaurant remained open on Thursday

Diners are seen in the Wilmington Waffle House on Thursday. The restaurant chain is famous for remaining open through severe storms

FEMA even uses a ‘Waffle House Index’ to determine how severe a storm is, based on whether the chain shuts down locations or limits its menu. Waffle House pre-stages supplies and relies on generators to remain open during storms

Hurricane Florence evacuees try to sleep in a Red Cross shelter in Grantsboro, North Carolina on Thursday

People are seen inside a shelter run by Red Cross on Thursday before Hurricane Florence comes ashore in Grantsboro, North Carolina

HURRICANE FLORENCE IN NUMBERS

The outer bands of wind and rain from a weakened but still deadly Hurricane Florence began lashing North Carolina on Thursday.

As the monster storm moves in for an extended stay, here is a breakdown by numbers:

Florence clocked 90mph winds on Thursday after it was downgraded to a Category 1

The storm was already generating 83-foot waves at sea on Wednesday

Life-threatening storm surges of up to 13 feet were also forecast in some areas

Florence is forecast to dump up to 40 inches of rain in some areas after it makes landfall in North and South Carolina

Potentially 10 trillion gallons of rain is expected in southern states in the next week

An estimated 10 million people live in areas expected to be placed under a hurricane or storm advisory

Up to 1.7 million people were ordered to evacuated ahead of the hurricane

‘On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m probably a 7’ in terms of worry, she said. ‘Because it’s Mother Nature. You can’t predict.’

Forecasters’ European climate model is predicting 2 trillion to 11 trillion gallons of rain will fall on North Carolina over the next week, according to meteorologist Ryan Maue of weathermodels.com. That’s enough water to fill the Empire State Building nearly 40,000 times.

More than 1.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to evacuate over the past few days, and the homes of about 10 million were under watches or warnings for the hurricane or tropical storm conditions.

Among those to shrug off evacuation orders in South Carolina was legendary singer Jimmy Buffet, who led a score of adrenaline-junkies waiting for the storm to hit as he headed to Folly Beach to surf the surges.

Posing with a surfboard and a thumbs-up the 71-year-old musician quoted his own lyrics writing: ‘I ain’t afraid of dying, I got no need to explain, I feel like going surfing in a hurricane.’

‘On a serious note – respect mother nature, please be safe and listen to your local authorities,’ he added in a Instagrampost from Wednesday.

Homeless after losing her job at Walmart three months ago, 25-year-old Brittany Jones went to a storm shelter at a high school near Raleigh. She said a hurricane has a way of bringing everyone to the same level.

‘It doesn’t matter how much money you have or how many generators you have if you can’t get gas,’ she said. ‘Whether you have a house or not, when the storm comes it will bring everyone together. A storm can come and wipe your house out overnight.’

Duke Energy Co. said Florence could knock out electricity to three-quarters of its four million customers in the Carolinas, and outages could last for weeks. Workers are being brought in from the Midwest and Florida to help in the storm’s aftermath, it said.

As Hurricane Florence barreled towards the East Coast musician Jimmy Buffett and other surfers headed to the water, the musician gave a thumbs up with his surfboard at Folly Beach in South Carolina on Wednesday

Scientists said it is too soon to say what role, if any, global warming played in the storm. But previous research has shown that the strongest hurricanes are getting wetter, more intense and intensifying faster because of human-caused climate change.

Florence’s weakening as it neared the coast created tension between some who left home and authorities who worried that the storm could still be deadly.

Frustrated after evacuating his beach home for a storm that was later downgraded, retired nurse Frederick Fisher grumbled in the lobby of a Wilmington hotel several miles inland.

‘Against my better judgment, due to emotionalism, I evacuated,’ said Fisher, 74. ‘I’ve got four cats inside the house. If I can’t get back in a week, after a while they might turn on each other or trash the place.’

Authorities pushed back against any suggestion the storm’s threat was exaggerated.

The police chief of a barrier island in Florence’s bulls’-eye said he was asking for next-of-kin contact information from the few residents who refused to leave.

‘I’m not going to put our personnel in harm’s way, especially for people that we’ve already told to evacuate,’ Wrightsville Beach Police Chief Dan House said.

But not everyone was taking Florence too seriously – about two dozen locals gathered on Thursday night behind the boarded-up windows of The Barbary Coast bar as Florence blew into Wilmington.

‘We’ll operate without power; we have candles. And you don’t need power to sling booze,’ said owner Eli Ellsworth.

Others were at home hoping for the best.

‘This is our only home. We have two boats and all our worldly possessions,’ said Susan Patchkofsky, who refused her family’s pleas to evacuate and stayed at Emerald Isle with her husband.

‘We have a safe basement and generator that comes on automatically. We chose to hunker down.’

What Hurricane Florence storm surges could look like

A simulation weather video is showing what the life-threatening Hurricane Florence storm surge might look like if it reaches a frightening nine feet.

Life-threatening storm surges of up to 13 feet have been forecast in some areas in North and South Carolina.

The Weather Channel‘s forecast video shows the potential damage such surges could inflict on the southern states.

Dr Greg Postel, the network’s hurricane specialist, said three feet of water was enough to knock people off their feet, potentially carry cars away and flood lower levels of buildings.

Six feet of storm surge could carry large objects like cars underwater and leave lower levels structures submerged in water, according to Dr Postel.

The video also gives a frightening indication of what nine feet of water looks like – completely submerging lower buildings.

‘Uninvited brute’: 2 dead as Florence drenches the Carolinas

Hurricane Florence rolled ashore in North Carolina with howling 90 mph winds and terrifying storm surge early Friday, killing at least two people and trapping hundreds more in high water as it settled in for what could be a long and extraordinarily destructive drenching.

More than 60 people had to be pulled from a collapsing cinderblock motel. Hundreds more were rescued elsewhere from rising water. Others could only wait and hope someone would come for them.

“WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU,” the city of New Bern tweeted around 2 a.m. “You may need to move up to the second story, or to your attic, but WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU.”

Climate Deal in Paris: Everything You Need to Know

Global Warming / Climate Change Hoax – Dr. Roy Spencer (1)

Climate Change in 12 Minutes – The Skeptic’s Case

Dr David Evans: Global Warming is Manmade? (1 of 2)

Dr David Evans: Global Warming is Manmade? (2 of 2)

Dr Easterbrook Global Warming HOAX & Facts

The Great Global Warming Swindle Full Movie

Another hurricane is about to batter our coast. Trump is complicit.

Hurricane Florence is one of many signs of climate change, and those who deny it are complicit in the destruction, meteorologist Eric Holthaus says.(Gillian Brockell, Kate Woodsome, Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)

YET AGAIN, a massive hurricane feeding off unusually warm ocean water has the potential to stall over heavily populated areas, menacing millions of people. Last year Hurricane Harvey battered Houston. Now, Hurricane Florence threatens to drench already waterlogged swaths of the East Coast, including the nation’s capital . If the Category 4 hurricane does, indeed, hit the Carolinas this week, it will be the strongest storm on record to land so far north.

President Trump issued severalwarnings on his Twitter feed Monday, counseling those in Florence’s projected path to prepare and listen to local officials. That was good advice.

Yet when it comes to extreme weather, Mr. Trump is complicit. He plays down humans’ role in increasing the risks, and he continues to dismantle efforts to address those risks. It is hard to attribute any single weather event to climate change. But there is no reasonable doubt that humans are priming the Earth’s systems to produce disasters

Kevin Trenberth, a climate researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, co-wrote a May papershowing that Harvey’s cataclysmic wetness came from the unusually hot Gulf of Mexico water that fed the hurricane before it slammed into Texas. “Harvey could not have produced so much rain without human-induced climate change,” he and his colleagues concluded. Now Florence is feasting on warm Atlantic Ocean water. “The ocean is warming up systematically,” Mr. Trenberth said, explaining that, though natural variation can turn surface temperatures up or down a bit, the oceans’ energy content is inexorably rising. “It is the strongest signal of global warming,” Mr. Trenberth added.

Scientists also warn that climate change may be slowing the wind currents that guide hurricanes, making storms more sluggish and, therefore, apt to linger longer over disaster zones. Tropical cyclone movement has slowed all over the planet. Harvey’s stubborn refusal to leave the Houston area was a decisive factor in its destructiveness. Florence may behave similarly.

And human-caused sea-level rise encourages higher storm surges and fewer natural barriers between water and people.

With depressingly ironic timing, the Trump administration announced Tuesday a plan to roll back federal rules on methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is the main component in natural gas. Drillers and transporters of the fuel were supposed to be more careful about letting it waft into the atmosphere, which is nothing more than rank resource waste that also harms the environment. The Trump administration has now attacked all three pillars of President Barack Obama’s climate-change plan.

The president has cemented the GOP’s legacy as one of reaction and reality denial. Sadly, few in his party appear to care.

MEDIA POLITICIZE FLORENCE, BLAME TRUMP FOR STORMS, PREDICT MASS DEATH

Trump is ‘actively making the problem worse’

Sep 14, 2018

On CNN, political analyst John Avlon, in a segment titled “Reality Check,” suggested Trump is at fault for Hurricane Florence, and that his climate policies could kill up to 80,000 people per decade.

Is Trump “complicit in this storm?” asked Alisyn Camerota in the segment introduction.

“His policies have been tearing down our defenses to climate change, which is often a blame for extreme weather,” Avlon answered. “On the same day Trump was discussing Florence, his EPA proposed rolling back restrictions on emissions of methane. That’s just the latest environmental policy targeted by the Trump Administration.”

Avlon rattled off a series of Obama-era environmental regulations the Trump Administration is rolling back — including pulling out of the Paris climate accord — and then boldly predicted a death toll in the thousands.

“It is so bad according to two Harvard scientists, it could lead to 80,000 unnecessary deaths every decade,” Avlon said. “Warmer water means more intense storms. When President Trump called Hurricane Florence tremendously wet, he was on to something.”

“This isn’t rocket science, it is climate science,” he concluded. “As long as we continue to aggressively ignore it, the cost in lives and dollars will escalate. That’s your reality check.”

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The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported.

In the Washington Post, the paper editorialized that Trump is “complicit” in Hurricane Florence’s anticipated destruction.

“When it comes to extreme weather, Mr. Trump is complicit,” the editors wrote. “He plays down humans’ role in increasing the risks, and he continues to dismantle efforts to address those risks. It is hard to attribute any single weather event to climate change. But there is no reasonable doubt that humans are priming the Earth’s systems to produce disasters.”

The paper concluded:

With depressingly ironic timing, the Trump administration announced Tuesday a plan to roll back federal rules on methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is the main component in natural gas. Drillers and transporters of the fuel were supposed to be more careful about letting it waft into the atmosphere, which is nothing more than rank resource waste that also harms the environment. The Trump administration has now attacked all three pillars of President Barack Obama’s climate-change plan.

The president has cemented the GOP’s legacy as one of reaction and reality denial. Sadly, few in his party appear to care.

Back on MSNBC, host Katy Tur invited on media personality Bill Nye and former director of communications for President Obama’s White House Climate Change Task Force, Paul Bledsoe, to setup Trump as the fall guy for Florence.

Tur introduced the segment claiming “climate deniers” in the Trump Administration make it “incredibly difficult to deal with this disaster.”

“President Trump says FEMA is ready for Hurricane Florence but mounting evidence suggests it could be incredibly difficult to deal with this disaster if climate change deniers are on the front lines,” Tur said. “A new study from the Princeton University is echoing the findings of previous research showing climate change as the cause of ocean conditions that produce fast storms like Hurricane Harvey. NOAA is suggesting it’s 3 degrees Fahrenheit above average. Where does the Trump Administration stand on climate change? President Trump rolled back Obama era mandates for leaks and oil and gas wells. These rules were part of Obama’s three part strategy for combating climate change.”

After Nye attacked anyone who “continue[s] to deny climate change” for undermining America’s ability to respond to extreme weather, Bledsoe leveled an even sharper political attack against the Trump Administration.

“Donald Trump and other Republicans are denying climate change are on the wrong side of public safety, of economics and of history,” Bledsoe intoned. “This is not an environmental issue fundamentally. It’s one of public safety and economics and unfortunately, we’re going to see more and more of these extreme, costly and threatening-to-public-health-and-safety events until we begin to reduce our emissions.”

Atlantic hurricane season

Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane frequency (by month, based on data from 1851-2017)[1]

Hurricane tracks from 1980 through 2014. Green tracks did not make landfall in US; yellow tracks made landfall but were not major hurricanes at the time; red tracks made landfall and were major hurricanes.

The Atlantic hurricane season is the period in a year when hurricanes usually form in the Atlantic Ocean. Tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic are called hurricanes, tropical storms, or tropical depressions. In addition, there have been several storms over the years that have not been fully tropical and are categorized as subtropical depressions and subtropical storms. Even though subtropical storms and subtropical depressions are not technically as strong as tropical cyclones, the damages can still be devastating.

Worldwide, tropical cyclone activity peaks in late summer, when the difference between temperatures aloft and sea surface temperatures is the greatest. However, each particular basin has its own seasonal patterns. On a worldwide scale, May is the least active month, while September is the most active.[2] In the Northern Atlantic Ocean, a distinct hurricane season occurs from June 1 to November 30, sharply peaking from late August through September;[2] the season’s climatological peak of activity occurs around September 10 each season.[3] This is the norm, but in 1938, the Atlantic hurricane season started as early as January 3.

Tropical disturbances that reach tropical storm intensity are named from a pre-determined list. On average, 10.1 named storms occur each season, with an average of 5.9 becoming hurricanes and 2.5 becoming major hurricanes (Category 3 or greater). The most active season was 2005, during which 28 tropical cyclones formed, of which a record 15 became hurricanes. The least active season was 1914, with only one known tropical cyclone developing during that year.[4] The Atlantic hurricane season is a time when most tropical cyclones are expected to develop across the northern Atlantic Ocean. It is currently defined as the time frame from June 1 through November 30, though in the past the season was defined as a shorter time frame. During the season, regular tropical weather outlooks are issued by the National Hurricane Center, and coordination between the Weather Prediction Center and National Hurricane Center occurs for systems which have not formed yet, but could develop during the next three to seven days.

Concept

The basic concept of a hurricane season began during 1935,[5] when dedicated wire circuits known as hurricane circuits began to be set up along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts,[6] a process completed by 1955.[7] It was originally the time frame when the tropics were monitored routinely for tropical cyclone activity, and was originally defined as from June 15 through October 31.[8] Over the years, the beginning date was shifted back to June 1, while the end date was shifted to November 15,[6] before settling at November 30 by 1965.[9][10] This was when hurricane reconnaissance planes were sent out to fly across the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico on a routine basis to look for potential tropical cyclones, in the years before the continuous weather satellite era.[8] Since regular satellite surveillance began, hurricane hunter aircraft fly only into storm areas which are first spotted by satellite imagery.[11]

Operations

During the hurricane season, the National Hurricane Center routinely issues their Tropical Weather Outlook product, which identifies areas of concern within the tropics which could develop into tropical cyclones. If systems occur outside the defined hurricane season, special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued.[12] Routine coordination occurs at 1700 UTC each day between the Weather Prediction Center and National Hurricane Center to identify systems for the pressure maps three to seven days into the future within the tropics, and points for existing tropical cyclones six to seven days into the future.[13] Possible tropical cyclones are depicted with a closed isobar, while systems with less certainty to develop are depicted as “spot lows” with no isobar surrounding them.

HURDAT

The North Atlantic hurricane database, or HURDAT, is the database for all tropical storms and hurricanes for the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, including those that have made landfall in the United States. The original database of six-hourly positions and intensities were put together in the 1960s in support of the Apollo space program to help provide statistical track forecast guidance. In the intervening years, this database — which is now freely and easily accessible on the Internet from the National Hurricane Center’s (NHC) webpage — has been utilized for a wide variety of uses: climatic change studies, seasonal forecasting, risk assessment for county emergency managers, analysis of potential losses for insurance and business interests, intensity forecasting techniques and verification of official and various model predictions of track and intensity.

HURDAT was not designed with all of these uses in mind when it was first put together and not all of them may be appropriate given its original motivation. HURDAT contains numerous systematic as well as some random errors in the database. Additionally, analysis techniques have changed over the years at NHC as their understanding of tropical cyclones has developed, leading to biases in the historical database. Another difficulty in applying the hurricane database to studies concerned with landfalling events is the lack of exact location, time and intensity at hurricane landfall.

Re-analysis project

HURDAT is regularly updated annually to reflect the previous season’s activity. The older portion of the database has been regularly revised since 2001. The first time in 2001 led to the addition of tropical cyclone tracks for the years 1851 to 1885. The second time was August 2002 when Hurricane Andrew was upgraded to a Category 5. Recent efforts into uncovering undocumented historical hurricanes in the late 19th and 20th centuries by various researchers have greatly increased our knowledge of these past events. Possible changes for the years 1951 onward are not yet incorporated into the HURDAT database. Because of all of these issues, a re-analysis of the Atlantic hurricane database is being attempted that will be completed in three years.

In addition to the groundbreaking work by Partagas[context?], additional analyses, digitization and quality control of the data was carried out by researchers at the NOAA Hurricane Research Division funded by the NOAA Office of Global Programs. This re-analysis will continue to progress through the remainder of the 20th century.[14]

The National Hurricane Center’s Best Track Change Committee has approved changes for a few recent cyclones, such as Hurricane Andrew. Official changes to the Atlantic hurricane database are approved by the National Hurricane Center Best Track Change Committee. Thus research conducted by Chris Landsea and colleagues as part of the Atlantic hurricane database reanalysis project are submitted through this review process. Not all Landsea’s recommendations are accepted by the Committee.

1850–1899 (1851–present HURDAT era) ….

This bar chart shows the number of named storms and hurricanes per year from 1851–2018.

A 2011 study analyzing one of the main sources of hurricanes – the African easterly wave (AEW) – found that the change in AEWs is closely linked to increased activity of intense hurricanes in the North Atlantic. The synoptic concurrence of AEWs in driving the dynamics of the Sahel greening also appears to increase tropical cyclogenesis over the North Atlantic.[18]

References …

Don’t Believe The Global Warmists, Major Hurricanes Are Less Frequent

Sep 5, 2012, 12:21pm

James Taylor Contributor

I am president of the Spark of Freedom Foundation.

When Hurricane Isaac made landfall in southern Louisiana last week, the storm provided a rare break in one of the longest periods of hurricane inactivity in U.S. history. Seeking to deflect attention away from this comforting trend, global warming alarmists attempted a high-profile head fake, making public statements that the decline in recent hurricane activity masked an increase in strong, damaging hurricanes.

“The hurricanes that really matter, that cause damage, are increasing,” John Abraham, a mechanical engineer on the staff of little-known University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, told Discovery News.

Normally, of course, the subjective global climate opinions of a mechanical engineer at an obscure Minnesota university wouldn’t be national news. However, global warming alarmists put Abraham forward as the point man for their self-proclaimed Climate Science Rapid Response Team. But hey, if Abraham is the best they can do, so be it.

Abraham says major hurricanes are the only ones that really matter, and that major hurricanes are increasing. If that is indeed so, then we might have a cause for concern. Let’s go straight to the data to find out if major hurricanes are indeed increasing.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) provides information on major U.S. hurricanes during the past 100-plus years.According to the NHC, 70 major hurricanes struck the United States in the 100 years between 1911 and 2010. That is an average of 7 major hurricane strikes per decade. What are the trends within this 100-year span? Let’s take a look.

Let’s split the 100-year hurricane record in half, starting with major hurricane strikes during the most recent 50 years.

During the most recent decade, 2001-2010, 7 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is exactly the 100-year average.

During the preceding decade, 1991-2000, 6 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is below the 100-year average.

During the decade 1981-1990, 4 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is substantially below the 100-year average, and ties the least number of major hurricanes on record.

During the decade 1971-1980, 4 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is substantially below the 100-year average, and ties 1981-1990 as the two decades with the least number of major hurricanes.

During the decade 1961-1970, 7 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is exactly the 100-year average.

Incredibly, not a single decade during the past 50 years saw an above-average number of major hurricanes – not a single decade!

Now let’s look at the preceding 50 years in the hurricane record, before the alleged human-induced global warming crisis.

During the decade 1951-1960, 9 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is above the 100-year average.

During the decade 1941-1950, 11 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is substantially above the 100-year average.

During the decade 1931-1940, 8 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is above the 100-year average.

During the decade 1921-1930, 6 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is slightly below the 100-year average.

During the decade 1911-1920, 8 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is above the 100-year average.

Global warming alarmists and mechanical engineers at obscure Minnesota universities may lie, but the objective data do not lie. During the past 5 decades, an average of 5.6 major hurricanes struck the United States. During the preceding 5 decades, and average of 8.4 major hurricanes struck the United States.

“The hurricanes that really matter, that cause damage” are not increasing. Hard, objective data show exactly the opposite. Indeed, during the past 4 decades, the time period during which global warming alarmists claim human-induced global warming accelerated rapidly and became incontrovertible, the fewest number of major hurricanes struck during any 40-year period since at least the 1800s.

Oh, and during the first two years of this current decade exactly zero major hurricanes struck the United States.

Global warming alarmists better hope we start seeing a rash of major hurricanes pretty soon if this is not going to be the quietest decade on record. Until and unless that happens, the objective data show the Climate Science Rapid Response Team is actually the Climate Science Rapid Propaganda Team.

Dr David Evans: Global Warming is Manmade? (2 of 2)

Dr Easterbrook Global Warming HOAX & Facts

The Great Global Warming Swindle Full Movie

Trump announces US withdrawal from Paris climate deal

US President Donald Trump said the United States would abandon the Paris climate deal — but was open to negotiating a new one (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)

Washington (AFP) – President Donald Trump on Thursday announced America’s withdrawal from the Paris climate deal, signaling a policy shift with wide-ranging repercussions for the climate and Washington’s ties with the world.

In a highly anticipated statement from the White House Rose Garden, Trump said the United States would abandon the current deal — but was open to negotiating a new one.

“As of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country,” Trump said.

“We’re getting out but we’ll start to negotiate and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine.”

Although details and the timeframe are still unclear, Trump argued that the agreement was a bad deal for Americans and that he was keeping a campaign promise to put American workers first.

“I cannot, in good conscience, support a deal that punishes the United States, which is what it does,” Trump said.

The White House has told allies the 2015 deal was signed by President Barack Obama out of “desperation.”

Trump faced last-minute pressure from business tycoons, foreign allies and from inside his own White House not to pull out of the 196-party accord.

Ever the showman, the 70-year-old gave his decision a reality-TV-style tease, refusing to indicate his preference either way until his announcement.

His decision could seriously hamper efforts to cut emissions and limit global temperature increases. The United States is the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China.

Opponents of withdrawal — said to include Trump’s own daughter Ivanka — have warned that America’s reputation and its leadership role on the world stage are also at stake, as is the environment.

Nicaragua and Syria are the only countries not party to the Paris accord, the former seeing it as not ambitious enough and the latter being racked by a brutal civil war.

– Diplomatic pressure –

Trump’s long wind-up prompted fierce lobbying, with his environmental protection chief Scott Pruitt and chief strategist Steve Bannon urging the president to leave.

A dozen large companies including oil major BP, agrochemical giant DuPont, Google, Intel and Microsoft, have also urged Trump to remain part of the deal.

Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk said he would have “no choice” but to leave White House-backed business councils if Trump pulls out.

On the diplomatic front, German Chancellor Angela Merkel led the “remain” camp, publicly describing the deal as “essential,” and suggesting other countries would press ahead regardless.

Trump raised alarm bells when he refused to sign up to a pledge on the deal at last week’s G7 meeting in Italy.

Merkel on Saturday labelled the result of the “six against one” discussion “very difficult, not to say very unsatisfactory.”

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was less diplomatic, all but accusing the US president of being ill-informed.

“I am a transatlanticist. But if the US president in the next hours and days says that he will get out of the Paris accord, then it’s the responsibility of Europe to say: that’s not acceptable.”

He noted that it would likely take three or four years to exit from the Paris deal, and revealed that world leaders had sought to explain that to Trump at the G7 summit.

“As it appears, that attempt failed,” said Juncker.

– China pledge –

Hours ahead of Trump’s announcement, China’s Premier Li Keqiang also pledged to stay the course on implementing the climate accord, and urged other countries to do likewise.

“China will continue to implement promises made in the Paris Agreement, to move towards the 2030 goal step by step steadfastly,” Li said in a Berlin joint press conference with Merkel.

“But of course, we also hope to do this in cooperation with others.”

China has been investing billions in clean energy infrastructure, as its leaders battle to clear up the choking pollution enveloping its biggest cities, including Beijing.

China and the US are responsible for some 40 percent of the world’s emissions and experts warn is vital for both to remain in the Paris agreement if it is to succeed.

The leader of Asia’s other behemoth, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said this week failing to act on climate change would be “morally criminal”.

– Contradictory signals –

Trump’s announcement comes less than 18 months after the historic climate pact was adopted in the French capital, the fruit of a hard-fought agreement between Beijing and Washington under Obama’s leadership.

The Paris Agreement commits signatories to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, which is blamed for melting ice caps and glaciers, rising sea levels and more violent weather events.

They vowed steps to keep the worldwide rise in temperatures “well below” two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial times and to “pursue efforts” to hold the increase under 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Since taking office on January 20, Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax”, has sent contradictory signals on the Paris deal.

When asked on Tuesday whether Trump believes human activity is contributing to climate change, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters, “Honestly, I haven’t asked him that. I can get back to you.”

Content

Aims

The aim of the convention is described in Article 2, “enhancing the implementation” of the UNFCCC through:[11]

“(a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;

(b) Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production;

Countries furthermore aim to reach “global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible”. The agreement has been described as an incentive for and driver of fossil fuel divestment.[12][13]

The Paris deal is the world’s first comprehensive climate agreement.[14]

Nationally determined contributions and their limits

The contribution that each individual country should make in order to achieve the worldwide goal are determined by all countries individually and called “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs).[15] Article 3 requires them to be “ambitious”, “represent a progression over time” and set “with the view to achieving the purpose of this Agreement”. The contributions should be reported every five years and are to be registered by the UNFCCC Secretariat.[16] Each further ambition should be more ambitious than the previous one, known as the principle of ‘progression’.[17] Countries can cooperate and pool their nationally determined contributions. The Intended Nationally Determined Contributions pledged during the 2015 Climate Change Conference serve—unless provided otherwise—as the initial Nationally determined contribution.

The level of NDCs set by each country[18] will set that country’s targets. However the ‘contributions’ themselves are not binding as a matter of international law, as they lack the specificity, normative character, or obligatory language necessary to create binding norms.[19] Furthermore, there will be no mechanism to force[20] a country to set a target in their NDC by a specific date and no enforcement if a set target in an NDC is not met.[18][21] There will be only a “name and shame” system[22] or as János Pásztor, the U.N. assistant secretary-general on climate change, told CBS News (US), a “name and encourage” plan.[23] As the agreement provides no consequences if countries do not meet their commitments, consensus of this kind is fragile. A trickle of nations exiting the agreement may trigger the withdrawal of more governments, bringing about a total collapse of the agreement.[24]

The negotiators of the Agreement however stated that the NDCs and the 2 °C reduction target were insufficient, instead, a 1.5 °C target is required, noting “with concern that the estimated aggregate greenhouse gas emission levels in 2025 and 2030 resulting from the intended nationally determined contributions do not fall within least-cost 2 ̊C scenarios but rather lead to a projected level of 55 gigatonnes in 2030”, and recognizing furthermore “that much greater emission reduction efforts will be required in order to hold the increase in the global average temperature to below 2 ̊C by reducing emissions to 40 gigatonnes or to 1.5 ̊C”.[25]

Although not the sustained temperatures over the long term to which the Agreement addresses, in the first half of 2016 average temperatures were about 1.3 °C (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average in 1880, when global record-keeping began.[26]

When the agreement achieved enough signatures to cross the threshold on 5 October 2016, US President Barack Obama claimed that “Even if we meet every target, we will only get to part of where we need to go,” and that “This agreement will help delay or avoid some of the worse consequences of climate change will help other nations ratchet down their emissions over time.”[27]

Global stocktake

The global stocktake will kick off with a “facilitative dialogue” in 2018. At this convening, parties will evaluate how their NDCs stack up to the nearer-term goal of peaking global emissions and the long-term goal of achieving net zero emissions by the second half of this century.[28]

The implementation of the agreement by all member countries together will be evaluated every 5 years, with the first evaluation in 2023. The outcome is to be used as input for new nationally determined contributions of member states.[29]The stocktake will not be of contributions/achievements of individual countries but a collective analysis of what has been achieved and what more needs to be done.

The stocktake works as part of the Paris Agreement’s effort to create a “ratcheting up” of ambition in emissions cuts. Because analysts have agreed that the current NDCs will not limit rising temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius, the global stocktake reconvenes parties to assess how their new NDCs must evolve so that they continually reflect a country’s “highest possible ambition”.[28]

While ratcheting up the ambition of NDCs is a major aim of the global stocktake, it assesses efforts beyond mitigation. The 5 year reviews will also evaluate adaptation, climate finance provisions, and technology development and transfer.[28]

Structure

The Paris Agreement has a ‘bottom up’ structure in contrast to most international environmental law treaties which are ‘top down’, characterised by standards and targets set internationally, for states to implement.[30] Unlike its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, which sets commitment targets that have legal force, the Paris Agreement, with its emphasis on consensus-building, allows for voluntary and nationally determined targets.[31] The specific climate goals are thus politically encouraged, rather than legally bound. Only the processes governing the reporting and review of these goals are mandated under international law. This structure is especially notable for the United States—because there are no legal mitigation or finance targets, the agreement is considered an “executive agreement rather than a treaty”. Because the UNFCCC treaty of 1992 received the consent of the Senate, this new agreement does not require further legislation from Congress for it to take effect.[31]

Another key difference between Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol is its scope. While the Kyoto Protocol differentiated between Annex-1 and non-Annex-1 countries, this bifurcation is blurred in the Paris Agreement, as all parties will be required to submit emissions reductions plans.[32] While the Paris Agreement still emphasizes the principle of “Common but Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capabilities”—the acknowledgement that different nations have different capacities and duties to climate action—it does not provide a specific division between developed and developing nations.[32]

Mitigation provisions and carbon markets

Article 6 has been flagged as containing some of the key provisions of the Paris Agreement.[33] Broadly, it outlines the cooperative approaches that parties can take in achieving their nationally determined carbon emissions reductions. In doing so, it helps establish the Paris Agreement as a framework for a global carbon market.[34]

Linkages and ITMOs

Paragraphs 6.2 and 6.3 establish a framework to govern the international transfer of mitigation outcomes (ITMOs). The Agreement recognizes the rights of Parties to use emissions reductions outside of their own jurisdiction toward their NDC, in a system of carbon accounting and trading.[34]

This provision requires the “linkage” of various carbon emissions trading systems—because measured emissions reductions must avoid “double counting”, transferred mitigation outcomes must be recorded as a gain of emission units for one party and a reduction of emission units for the other.[33] Because the NDCs, and domestic carbon trading schemes, are heterogeneous, the ITMOs will provide a format for global linkage under the auspices of the UNFCCC.[35]The provision thus also creates a pressure for countries to adopt emissions management systems—if a country wants to use more cost-effective cooperative approaches to achieve their NDCs, they will need to monitor carbon units for their economies.[36]

The Sustainable Development Mechanism

Paragraphs 6.4-6.7 establish a mechanism “to contribute to the mitigation of greenhouse gases and support sustainable development”.[37] Though there is no specific name for the mechanism as yet, many Parties and observers have informally coalesced around the name “Sustainable Development Mechanism” or “SDM”.[38][39] The SDM is considered to be the successor to the Clean Development Mechanism, a flexible mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, by which parties could collaboratively pursue emissions reductions for their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. The Sustainable Development Mechanism lays the framework for the future of the Clean Development Mechanism post-Kyoto (in 2020).

In its basic aim, the SDM will largely resemble the Clean Development Mechanism, with the dual mission to 1. contribute to global GHG emissions reductions and 2. support sustainable development.[40] Though the structure and processes governing the SDM are not yet determined, certain similarities and differences from the Clean Development Mechanism can already be seen. Notably, the SDM, unlike the Clean Development Mechanism, will be available to all parties as opposed to only Annex-1 parties, making it much wider in scope.[41]

Since the Kyoto Protocol went into force, the Clean Development Mechanism has been criticized for failing to produce either meaningful emissions reductions or sustainable development benefits in most instances.[42] It has also suffered from the low price of Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs), creating less demand for projects. These criticisms have motivated the recommendations of various stakeholders, who have provided through working groups and reports, new elements they hope to see in SDM that will bolster its success.[35] The specifics of the governance structure, project proposal modalities, and overall design are expected to come during the next[when?]Conference of the Parties in Marrakesh.

Adaptation provisions

Adaptation issues garnered more focus in the formation of the Paris Agreement. Collective, long-term adaptation goals are included in the Agreement, and countries must report on their adaptation actions, making adaptation a parallel component of the agreement with mitigation.[43] The adaptation goals focus on enhancing adaptive capacity, increasing resilience, and limiting vulnerability.[44]

Ensuring finance

In the Paris Agreement, the developed countries reaffirmed the commitment to mobilize $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020, and agreed to continue mobilizing finance at the level of $100 billion a year until 2025.[45] The commitment refers to the pre-existing plan to provide US$100 billion a year in aid to developing countries for actions on climate change adaptation and mitigation.[46]

Though both mitigation and adaptation require increased climate financing, adaptation has typically received lower levels of support and has mobilised less action from the private sector.[43] A 2014 report by the OECD found that just 16 percent of global finance was directed toward climate adaptation in 2014.[47] The Paris Agreement called for a balance of climate finance between adaptation and mitigation, and specifically underscoring the need to increase adaptation support for parties most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States. The agreement also reminds parties of the importance of public grants, because adaptation measures receive less investment from the public sector.[43] John Kerry, as Secretary of State, announced that grant-based adaptation finance would double by 2020.[31]

Some specific outcomes of the elevated attention to adaptation financing in Paris include the G7 countries’ announcement to provide US $420 million for Climate Risk Insurance, and the launching of a Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) Initiative.[48] In early March 2016, the Obama administration gave a $500 million grant to the “Green Climate Fund” as “the first chunk of a $3billion commitment made at the Paris climate talks.”[49][50][52]So far, the Green Climate Fund has now received over $10 billion in pledges. Notably, the pledges come from developed nations like France, the US, and Japan, but also from developing countries such as Mexico, Indonesia, and Vietnam.[31]

Loss and damage

A new issue that emerged as a focal point in the Paris negotiations rose from the fact that many of the worst effects of climate change will be too severe or come too quickly to be avoided by adaptation measures.[51] The Paris Agreement specifically acknowledges the need to address loss and damage of this kind, and aims to find appropriate responses.[51] It specifies that loss and damage can take various forms—both as immediate impacts from extreme weather events, and slow onset impacts, such as the loss of land to sea-level rise for low-lying islands.[31]

The push to address loss and damage as a distinct issue in the Paris Agreement came from the Alliance of Small Island States and the Least Developed Countries, whose economies and livelihoods are most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change.[31] Developed countries, however, worried that classifying the issue as one separate and beyond adaptation measures would create yet another climate finance provision, or might imply legal liability for catastrophic climate events.

In the end, all parties acknowledged the need for “averting, minimizing, and addressing loss and damage” but notably excludes any mention of compensation or liability.[11] The agreement also adopts the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, an institution that will attempt to address questions about how to classify, address, and share responsibility for loss and damage.[51]

Enhanced transparency framework

While each Party’s NDC is not legally binding, the Parties are legally bound to have their progress tracked by technical expert review to assess achievement toward the NDC, and to determine ways to strengthen ambition.[52] Article 13 of the Paris Agreement articulates an “enhanced transparency framework for action and support” that establishes harmonized monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) requirements. Thus, both developed and developing nations must report every two years on their mitigation efforts, and all parties will be subject to both technical and peer review.[52]

Flexibility mechanisms

While the enhanced transparency framework is universal, along with the global stocktaking to occur every 5 years, the framework is meant to provide “built-in flexibility” to distinguish between developed and developing countries’ capacities. In conjunction with this, the Paris Agreement has provisions for an enhanced framework for capacity building.[53] The agreement recognizes the varying circumstances of some countries, and specifically notes that the technical expert review for each country consider that country’s specific capacity for reporting.[53] The agreement also develops a Capacity-Building Initiative for Transparency to assist developing countries in building the necessary institutions and processes for complying with the transparency framework.[53]

There are several ways in which flexibility mechanisms can be incorporated into the enhanced transparency framework. The scope, level of detail, or frequency of reporting may all be adjusted and tiered based on a country’s capacity. The requirement for in-country technical reviews could be lifted for some less developed or small island developing countries. Ways to assess capacity include financial and human resources in a country necessary for NDC review.[53]

Adoption

Negotiations

Within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, legal instruments may be adopted to reach the goals of the convention. For the period from 2008 to 2012, greenhouse gas reduction measures were agreed in the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The scope of the protocol was extended until 2020 with the Doha Amendment to that protocol in 2012.[54]

Adoption

At the conclusion of COP 21 (the 21st meeting of the Conference of the Parties, which guides the Conference), on 12 December 2015, the final wording of the Paris Agreement was adopted by consensus by all of the 195 UNFCCC participating member states and the European Union[3] to reduce emissions as part of the method for reducing greenhouse gas. In the 12 page Agreement,[56]the members promised to reduce their carbon output “as soon as possible” and to do their best to keep global warming “to well below 2 degrees C” [3.6 degrees F].[57]

Signature and entry into force

The Paris Agreement was open for signature by States and regional economic integration organizations that are Parties to the UNFCCC (the Convention) from 22 April 2016 to 21 April 2017 at the UN Headquarters in New York.[58]

The agreement stated that it would enter into force (and thus become fully effective) only if 55 countries that produce at least 55% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions (according to a list produced in 2015)[59] ratify, accept, approve or accede to the agreement.[60][61] On 1 April 2016, the United States and China, which together represent almost 40% of global emissions, issued a joint statement confirming that both countries would sign the Paris Climate Agreement.[62][63] 175 Parties (174 states and the European Union) signed the treaty on the first date it was open for signature.[5][64] On the same day, more than 20 countries issued a statement of their intent to join as soon as possible with a view to joining in 2016. With ratification by the European Union, the Agreement obtained enough parties to enter into effect as of 4 November 2016.

European Union and its member states

Both the EU and its member states are individually responsible for ratifying the Paris Agreement. A strong preference was reported that the EU and its 28 member states deposit their instruments of ratification at the same time to ensure that neither the EU nor its member states engage themselves to fulfilling obligations that strictly belong to the other,[65] and there were fears that disagreement over each individual member state’s share of the EU-wide reduction target, as well as Britain’s vote to leave the EU might delay the Paris pact.[66] However, the European Parliament approved ratification of the Paris Agreement on 4 October 2016,[6] and the EU deposited its instruments of ratification on 5 October 2016, along with several individual EU member states.[66]

Parties and signatories

As of December 2016, 191 states and the European Union have signed the Agreement. 147 of those parties have ratified or acceded to the Agreement, most notably China and India, the countries with three of the four largest greenhouse gas emissions of the signatories’ total (about 42% together).[1][67][68]

† Though corresponding with the source the provided number for Sierra Leone’s emissions is incorrect. According to World Bank data, the correct 2000 emissions for Sierra Leone is 14,763 kt CO2-equivalents (not 365,107 kt), or 0.04% of the world total (not 0.98%).[74]

Non-signatories

The following UNFCCC member states are entitled to sign the Paris Agreement but have not done so. The Holy See is an observer state and can sign the Paris Agreement once it ascends to full membership.

The Holy See can’t sign the Paris Agreement until it becomes a full member of the UNFCCC. In 2015, Bernardito Auza stated that the Holy See intended to join the UNFCCC in order to sign the Paris Agreement.[75]

In 2015, Nicaraguan envoy Paul Oquist criticized the Paris Agreement for not punishing countries who didn’t follow it. He stated Nicaragua will continue countering climate change on its own, with plans being that the country will be “90 percent renewable” by 2020.[76]

Critical reception

UNEP

According to UNEP the emission cut targets in November 2016 will result in temperature rise by 3 °C above preindustrial levels, far above the 2 °C of the Paris climate agreement.[77]

Perfectible accord

Al Gore stated that “no agreement is perfect, and this one must be strengthened over time, but groups across every sector of society will now begin to reduce dangerous carbon pollution through the framework of this agreement.”[78]

According to a study published in Nature in June 2016, current country pledges are too low to lead to a temperature rise below the Paris Agreement temperature limit of “well below 2 °C”.[79][80]

Lack of binding enforcement mechanism

Although the agreement was lauded by many, including French President François Hollande and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon,[61] criticism has also surfaced. For example, James Hansen, a former NASA scientist and a climate change expert, voiced anger that most of the agreement consists of “promises” or aims and not firm commitments.[81]

Institutional asset owners associations and think-tanks such as the World Pensions Council (WPC) have also observed that the stated objectives of the Paris Agreement are implicitly “predicated upon an assumption – that member states of the United Nations, including high polluters such as China, the US, India, Brazil, Canada, Russia, Indonesia and Australia, which generate more than half the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, will somehow drive down their carbon pollution voluntarily and assiduously without any binding enforcement mechanism to measure and control CO2 emissions at any level from factory to state, and without any specific penalty gradation or fiscal pressure (for example a carbon tax) to discourage bad behaviour. A shining example of what Roman lawyers called circular logic: an agreement (or argument) presupposing in advance what it wants to achieve.”[82]

See also

Notes

^ Jump up to:abcdefEmissions of parties to the UNFCCC that had not yet submitted their first national communication to the UNFCCC secretariat with an emissions inventory at the time of adoption of the Paris Agreement were not included in the figure for entry into force of the Agreement.[59]

Jump up^The emissions of the European Union are accounted for in the total of its individual member states.

Jump up^Emissions of states that were not a party to the UNFCCC at the time of adoption of the Paris Agreement,[73] which were thus not permitted to sign the Agreement, were not included in the totals for entry into force for the Agreement.

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The Paris Protocol climate change agreement—to be negotiated between November 30 and December 11, 2015—should be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent. President Obama seems poised to circumvent Congress and prevent the Senate from having any input on the agreement. That is alarming behavior on the President’s part, since international commitments made by the executive branch often have significant domestic implications. Such a circumvention, if undertaken by the Administration, would evince an unprecedented level of executive unilateralism, and should be opposed by Congress by any and all means.

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President Obama plans to circumvent the Senate and prevent it from having any input on the Paris climate change agreement, which will be negotiated in Paris in December. That is alarming behavior on the President’s part, since the international commitments that he will make in Paris will have a significant impact on American energy production and consumption. The President’s intention to evade Senate review shows an unprecedented level of executive unilateralism and should be opposed by Congress by any and all means.

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Obama’s Plan to Avoid Senate Review of the Paris Protocol

The Paris Protocol climate change agreement—to be negotiated between November 30 and December 11, 2015—should be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent. President Obama seems poised to circumvent Congress and prevent the Senate from having any input on the agreement. That is alarming behavior on the President’s part, since international commitments made by the executive branch often have significant domestic implications. Such a circumvention, if undertaken by the Administration, would evince an unprecedented level of executive unilateralism, and should be opposed by Congress by any and all means.

The Obama Administration is planning an end run around the U.S. Senate in regard to a major international climate change agreement—the Paris Protocol—that will be negotiated between November 30 and December 11 at the 21st annual session of the Conference of Parties (COP 21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Administration’s plans to avoid Senate scrutiny of the protocol should come as no surprise. During a March 31, 2015, press briefing, White House spokesman Josh Earnest was asked whether Congress has the right to approve the protocol:

[Reporter]: …Is this the kind of agreement that Congress should have the ability to sign off on?

[Earnest]: …I think it’s hard to take seriously from some Members of Congress who deny the fact that climate change exists, that they should have some opportunity to render judgment about a climate change agreement.[1]

The host of the upcoming conference in Paris, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, agrees with Earnest that congressional scrutiny must be avoided. Addressing a group of African delegates at the June climate change conference in Bonn, Germany, Fabius expressed his desire to bypass Congress on the Paris Protocol: “We must find a formula which is valuable for everybody and valuable for the U.S. without going to Congress…. Whether we like it or not, if it comes to the Congress, they will refuse.”[2]

Apparently, no Member of Congress who questions climate science, or who disagrees with the Obama Administration’s policy views on climate change, is competent to review a major international agreement negotiated by the President. That is an alarming view on the role of Congress and particularly the Senate where, as in this case, the international commitments being made by the executive branch have significant domestic implications.

The Obama Administration should reverse course on its plan to act unilaterally in Paris, and should submit any agreement reached there to the Senate for advice and consent. To do otherwise would be to violate a commitment made by the executive branch in 1992 in connection with ratification of the UNFCCC. The President’s plans also violate internal State Department regulations concerning the legal form of international agreements.

If the Administration sticks to its scheme to avoid scrutiny of the Paris Protocol, Congress should withhold any appropriations to implement any aspect of the protocol and block the billions of dollars to be distributed to developing countries for climate change adaptation purposes. The Senate should also pass a resolution criticizing the Obama Administration’s ploy to circumnavigate the Senate in violation of previous commitments.

What Will the Obama Administration Do in Paris?

It has been widely reported that the Obama Administration intends to negotiate an agreement in Paris that, in its view, will require neither the advice and consent of the Senate as a treaty nor approval by both houses of Congress as a congressional-executive agreement. In August 2014 The New York Timesreported that the Administration plans to negotiate a “hybrid” agreement in Paris geared toward “naming and shaming” countries that fail to cut their emissions:

American negotiators are instead homing in on a hybrid agreement—a proposal to blend legally binding conditions from [the UNFCCC] with new voluntary pledges. The mix would create a deal that would update the treaty, and thus, negotiators say, not require a new vote of ratification.

Countries would be legally required to enact domestic climate change policies—but would voluntarily pledge to specific levels of emissions cuts and to channel money to poor countries to help them adapt to climate change. Countries might then be legally obligated to report their progress toward meeting those pledges at meetings held to identify those nations that did not meet their cuts.[3]

This “hybrid” approach was confirmed in October 2014 by the Administration’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, Todd Stern, in a speech at Yale University:

Finally, let’s talk about the legal form of the Paris agreement. The Durban mandate says, in effect, that the new agreement will be a legally binding one in at least some respects, but doesn’t specify which ones. We think the most interesting proposal on the table is New Zealand’s, under which there would be a legally binding obligation to submit a “schedule” for reducing emissions, plus various legally binding provisions for accounting, reporting, review, periodic updating of the schedules, etc. But the content of the schedule itself would not be legally binding at an international level.[4]

The “interesting proposal” referenced by Stern is a March 2014 submission made by New Zealand to the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action.[5] In that submission, New Zealand suggested that the Paris agreement will likely be a “package…made up of a concise, legally binding agreement supported by COP decisions, and a national schedule for each Party.” Further, “[e]ach schedule will be supplementary to the legally binding agreement and will detail the Party’s nationally determined commitment” which would “sit in national schedules supplementary to, and outside the legally binding agreement.”[6]

Stern made it clear that, in harmony with New Zealand’s proposal, U.S. commitments for emissions reductions (mitigation) made in Paris would not be legally binding: “Some are sure to disapprove of the New Zealand idea, since the mitigation commitment itself is not legally binding, but we would counsel against that kind of orthodoxy.”[7]

So as it stands, the Obama Administration is contemplating that a “hybrid” agreement will emerge from Paris where the central element—the commitment to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—would be only politically binding on the United States, while other elements—such as provisions on measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV)—would be legally binding. The mitigation targets and timetables would be appended to the legally binding agreement as a “schedule” or an “information document” (INF).[8]

Will the President Submit the Paris Protocol to the Senate?

Statements made by Todd Stern after his Yale speech indicate that the Administration is at least contemplating sending some, but not all, of the Paris Protocol to the Senate. During a December 2014 press conference Stern was asked whether the agreement would need to be submitted to the Senate, to which he circularly replied, “We will submit any kind of agreement that requires that kind of submission” and, thus, it “will depend entirely on how the agreement is written.”[9]

The likelihood, however, is that the Administration will treat the legally binding provisions of the Paris Protocol as a “sole executive agreement” not requiring Senate approval. In doing so, the Administration will cite the fact that the U.S. is already party to the UNFCCC, which requires the U.S. to implement a national program to address climate change and to submit reports on its emissions to the COP; it also authorizes the COP to assess U.S. implementation of its commitments. The Administration will likely assert that the legally binding parts of the Paris Protocol merely reflect existing UNFCCC commitments and therefore those provisions of the protocol need not be “re-approved” by the Senate. As suggested by one commentator:

The President would be on relatively firm legal ground accepting a new climate agreement with legal force, without submitting it to the Senate or Congress for approval, to the extent it is procedurally oriented, could be implemented on the basis of existing law, and is aimed at implementing or elaborating the UNFCCC.…

If the Paris climate change agreement solely elaborated [UNFCCC] requirements—for example, by establishing a process for parties to submit their national mitigation and adaptation measures, report on implementation, and accept international review—then arguably this new agreement could be concluded by the president acting alone.[10]

It is therefore entirely plausible that the Obama Administration will not submit even the legally binding parts of the Paris Protocol to the Senate for its advice and consent. That is likely the Administration’s intention, given the fact that any climate change agreement submitted to the Senate would face significant, perhaps insurmountable, opposition.

The Administration will also likely claim that the Paris Protocol requires no Senate approval because the executive branch possesses the statutory authority necessary to enforce new international commitments through domestic regulations. It may cite in support the fact that in 1979, the Carter Administration negotiated and signed the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) as a sole executive agreement, and based its authority to do so on compliance with the Clean Air Act of 1963. Congress neither authorized the LRTAP negotiations, nor was the agreement submitted to the Senate as a treaty or to Congress as a congressional-executive agreement.[11]

The Obama Administration may follow the LRTAP precedent in regard to the Paris Protocol. The Administration could then use existing statutory and regulatory provisions to enforce its international commitments domestically. The Administration has already made clear its intention to do so. Specifically, on March 31, 2015, it submitted an “intended nationally determined contribution” (INDC) to the UNFCCC.[12] The INDC submission identified the Clean Air Act, the Energy Policy Act, the Energy Independence and Security Act, and regulations (existing and proposed) thereunder as the provisions relevant to implementation of the U.S. mitigation commitment under the protocol.[13]

In sum, based on statements from White House climate negotiators and on the Obama Administration’s INDC submission, it is more likely than not that the Administration intends to bypass the Senate entirely regarding the Paris Protocol.

White House Breach of Prior UNFCCC Promise

Whatever the Obama Administration’s intentions, any agreement reached in Paris that commits the United States to specific emissions targets or timetables should be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent. This should be done regardless of whether the commitments are made in a binding treaty document or in a non-binding “schedule” to a treaty document. That was the commitment of the executive branch when it sought Senate consent to ratification of the UNFCCC in 1992.

The UNFCCC was negotiated, signed, and ratified by the U.S. in 1992 during the Administration of President George H. W. Bush. By ratifying the convention, the United States agreed to be legally bound by its provisions. However, while the UNFCCC requires the U.S. to “adopt national policies and take corresponding measures on the mitigation of climate change, by limiting its anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases,”[14] it did not require the U.S. to commit to specific emissions targets or timetables.

The ratification history of the UNFCCC indicates that the Senate intended any future agreement negotiated under the auspices of the convention that adopted emissions targets and timetables would be submitted to the Senate.[15] Specifically, during the hearing process before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding ratification of the UNFCCC, the Bush Administration pledged to submit future protocols negotiated under the convention to the Senate for its advice and consent. In response to written questions from the committee, the Administration responded as follows:

Question. Will protocols to the convention be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent?

Answer. We would expect that protocols would be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent; however, given that a protocol could be adopted on any number of subjects, treatment of any given protocol would depend on its subject matter.

Question. Would a protocol containing targets and timetables be submitted to the Senate?

Answer. If such a protocol were negotiated and adopted, and the United States wished to become a party, we would expect such a protocol to be submitted to the Senate.[16]

When the Foreign Relations Committee reported the UNFCCC out of committee, it memorialized the executive branch’s commitment: “[A] decision by the Conference of the Parties [to the UNFCCC] to adopt targets and timetables would have to be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent before the United States could deposit its instruments of ratification for such an agreement.”[17]

The Senate gave its consent to ratification of the UNFCCC based on the executive branch’s explicit promise that any future protocol “containing targets and timetables” would be submitted to the Senate. The agreement struck between the Democrat-controlled Senate and the Republican President in 1992 made no exception for a non-binding “schedule” appended to a legally binding agreement. Rather, the Senate relied on the good faith of future presidential Administrations to adhere to the commitment that any future protocol “containing targets and timetables” be submitted to the Senate for advice and consent.

The fact is that the Paris Protocol contemplated by the Obama Administration—as described in its own public statements and indicated by its endorsement of the New Zealand proposal—falls within the parameters of the commitments made by the Bush Administration to the Senate in 1992. A “hybrid” agreement composed of both binding provisions (such as measurement, reporting, and verification requirements) as well as non-binding mitigation targets and timetables still qualifies as a “protocol containing targets and timetables.”

As such, the Administration’s intentions should be seen for what they are—an attempt to skirt prior commitments made to the Senate by cobbling together a “hybrid” agreement of dubious legitimacy.

Is the Administration Violating State Department Regulations?

The Obama Administration’s disregard for the agreements made in 1992 between the Senate and the executive branch flies not only in the face of intra-governmental comity, but also violates internal regulations adopted by the State Department, known as the Circular 175 Procedure (C-175).[18]

C-175 establishes, inter alia, eight factors for determining whether an international agreement should be negotiated as a treaty (and therefore approved by the Senate through the standard Article II process) or as an “international agreement other than a treaty” (such as an executive agreement):

(1) The extent to which the agreement involves commitments or risks affecting the nation as a whole; (2) Whether the agreement is intended to affect state laws; (3) Whether the agreement can be given effect without the enactment of subsequent legislation by the Congress; (4) Past U.S. practice as to similar agreements; (5) The preference of the Congress as to a particular type of agreement; (6) The degree of formality desired for an agreement; (7) The proposed duration of the agreement, the need for prompt conclusion of an agreement, and the desirability of concluding a routine or short-term agreement; and (8) The general international practice as to similar agreements.[19]

Even a cursory review of those factors compels the conclusion that the Obama Administration should treat the Paris Protocol as an Article II treaty and submit it to the Senate for advice and consent:

Commitments affecting the nation. The agreement certainly “involves commitments or risks affecting the U.S. as a whole.” The Administration has made clear that it intends to fulfill its mitigation commitments under the Paris Protocol by enforcing emissions standards through existing and new regulations on vehicles, buildings, power plants, and landfills.[20] These are multi-sectoral, comprehensive, nationwide commitments that have no geographic limitation. The commitments made in the Paris Protocol will affect the entire nation, and therefore the protocol should be treated as a treaty.

Subsequent congressional legislation. As contemplated, the Paris Protocol would include major financial commitments by the United States to assist developing countries in adapting to climate change. The committed amount is likely to be many billions of dollars—funds that must be authorized and appropriated by Congress. Since key provisions of the Paris Protocol cannot be given effect without the enactment of legislation, the protocol should be treated as a treaty.

Past U.S. practice. Major international environmental agreements are usually concluded as treaties and submitted to the Senate.[21] Past environmental agreements treated in this manner include the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the 1973 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, the 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (and the 1987 Montreal Protocol thereto), the 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, and the 1994 U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification.Regarding climate change, the UNFCCC was submitted to the Senate by the first Bush Administration, and the Kyoto Protocol was treated as a treaty and would have been submitted to the Senate had the Senate not already rejected it out of hand in the Byrd–Hagel Resolution by a vote of 95 to 0.[22] Since past U.S. practice has been to submit major international environmental agreements to the Senate, the protocol should be treated as a treaty.

Preference of Congress as to legal form of agreement. Gauging congressional preference as to the legal form of an international climate change agreement is difficult, but to date no one in Congress has advocated that the Paris Protocol be negotiated as an executive agreement and that Congress be bypassed. By contrast, according to a Bloomberg report, Senate Republicans are “nearly unanimous in arguing that U.S. participation in a global climate deal should be subject to advice and consent in the Senate.”[23]Several prominent Senate Republicans have made clear that they object to the White House’s planned end run. Senator John McCain (R–AZ) stated, “All treaties and agreements of that nature are obviously the purview of the United States Senate, according to the Constitution.” Senator McCain added that “the President may try to get around that…but I believe clearly [that the] constitutional role, particularly of the Senate, should be adhered to.” Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference John Thune (R–SD) stated that any deal that commits the U.S. to cut GHG emissions “needs to be reviewed, scrutinized and looked at and I think Congress has a role to play in that.”[24]Given widespread opposition to proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations to reduce GHG emissions[25] upon which the Obama Administration is basing its international mitigation commitments, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–KY) issued a warning to the other nations negotiating the Paris Protocol: “[O]ur international partners should proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal.”[26]

Degree of formality. Whatever else it is, the Paris Protocol, as contemplated, is not an “informal” international agreement. The current draft of the negotiating text, with all its options and counter-options, is nearly 100 pages long, in small text.[27] The draft agreement covers a wide range of topics, including mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology transfer, capacity-building, transparency, implementation, compliance, and other matters. It is, by any measure, a “formal” agreement, and should therefore be treated as a treaty.

Duration. The proposed duration of the Paris Protocol is subject to negotiation, but it is likely to contain a commitment period that ends in 2025 or 2030. However, it is contemplated that more stringent standards will be negotiated in the years ahead by amending the protocol’s mitigation commitment schedules. There is clearly no need for “prompt conclusion” of the protocol (having been negotiated over several years’ time) and there is no desire to conclude it as a “routine or short-term agreement.” Since the duration of the protocol is effectively open-ended, and the protocol is not a “routine” or “short-term” agreement, it should be treated as a treaty.

In sum, at least five of the eight C-175 factors lean in favor of treating the Paris Protocol as a treaty that must be submitted to the Senate for advice and consent. While the C-175 factors need not be cleaved to without discretion,[28] they represent an effort to harmonize the U.S. government’s approach to making international agreements, and must be given “due consideration.”[29] That the Obama Administration apparently disregarded them entirely is indicative of its intention to bypass the Senate.

Countering President Obama’s End Run

The only conclusion that may fairly be drawn from the Obama Administration’s actions is that it intends to avoid Senate review of the Paris Protocol for a simple reason—the protocol would not receive the Senate’s consent for ratification. The protocol would likewise not receive majority support in the House and Senate if the Administration submitted it to Congress as a congressional-executive agreement.

Problematically for the Obama Administration, the first Bush Administration specifically committed to submit any agreement along the lines of the Paris Protocol to the Senate. The Bush Administration pledged that any future protocol “containing targets and timetables” would be sent to the Senate for its advice and consent.[30] The Obama Administration’s plan violates both the letter and spirit of its predecessor’s commitment to the Senate. In response to that violation of trust, the Senate should:

Demand that the Paris Protocol be submitted to the Senate. In the spirit of the 1997 Byrd–Hagel Resolution, the Senate should express its sense that the Obama Administration is purposefully reneging on its predecessor’s commitment to submit protocols “containing targets and timetables” to the Senate for its advice and consent. The Paris Protocol, however it is configured during COP 21, will include emissions targets and timetables, even if they are part of a non-binding “schedule.” The Administration’s machinations to avoid Senate approval should be noted and denounced in the Senate resolution.

Block funding for the Paris Protocol. An illegitimate Paris Protocol should not be legitimated by subsequent congressional action. One step that Congress can take is to refuse to authorize any funds to implement the protocol, including the billions of American taxpayer dollars in adaptation funding to which the U.S. will commit itself. The Obama Administration has successfully received at least $7.5 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars from Congress to fulfill a “nonbinding” international climate change agreement—the 2009 Copenhagen Accord.[31] That “success” should not be repeated in connection with the Paris Protocol. Moreover, if the “developing” countries understand that the U.S. will not transfer billions of dollars to them for adaptation, they will be less likely to support the protocol.

Withhold funding for the UNFCCC. If the Administration bypasses the Senate in contravention of the commitments made by the first Bush Administration in 1992, it goes to prove what mischief can result from ratifying a “framework” convention such as the UNFCCC. The Administration will likely base its Senate end run on the argument that the UNFCCC authorizes it to do so. As such, the UNFCCC will have become precisely the danger that the Senate sought to prevent in 1992. Defunding the UNFCCC would prevent the U.S. from participating in future conferences, submitting reports, and otherwise engaging in the dubious enterprise.

Take prophylactic legislative measures. In addition to specific legislative efforts to ensure that no adaptation funding committed under the Paris Protocol is authorized, Congress should include language in all legislation regarding the Environmental Protection Agency and related executive agencies and programs that no funds may be expended in connection with the implementation of any commitment made in the protocol.

While Presidents should have a certain amount of discretion to choose the legal form of international agreements they are negotiating, President Obama has placed his desire to achieve an international environmental win above governmental comity and historical U.S. treaty practice. Major environmental treaties that have significant domestic impacts should not be developed and approved by the executive alone. An agreement with far-reaching domestic consequences like the Paris Protocol will lack democratic legitimacy unless the Senate or Congress as a whole, representing the will of the American people, gives its approval.

The White House plan shows contempt for the U.S. treaty process and the role of Congress, particularly the Senate. It is an attempt to achieve through executive fiat that which cannot be achieved through the democratic process. All indications are that the Obama Administration intends to ignore the presidential assurances made to the Senate in 1992, categorize the Paris Protocol as a “sole executive agreement” in order to bypass the Senate, and enforce that protocol through controversial and deeply divisive regulations, such as the Clean Power Plan. Such actions, if taken by the Administration, evince an unprecedented level of executive unilateralism, and should be opposed by Congress by any and all means.

—Steven Groves is Bernard and Barbara Lomas Senior Research Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation.

Intended nationally determined contributions: what are the implications for greenhouse gas emissions in 2030?

Policy paper 30 October, 2015

Download

The analysis presented here considers whether the INDCs that were submitted by 23 October 2015 are consistent with a reasonable chance of not exceeding the 2°C warming limit. As of 23 October 2015, 154 countries (including the 28 Member States of the European Union) had submitted INDCs, including pledges to limit or reduce annual national emissions after 2020. These 154 countries were together responsible for over 85% of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases, and represented over 90% of global gross domestic product (GDP), in 2012.

Based on our analysis we conclude that there has been progress compared with hypothetical ‘business as usual’ global emissions pathways. However there is a gap between the emissions pathway that would result from current ambitions and plans, including those goals outlined by the submitted INDCs, and a pathway that is consistent with a reasonable chance of limiting the rise in global average temperature to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. The most optimistic estimate of global emissions in 2030 resulting from the INDCs is about halfway between hypothetical ‘business as usual’ and a pathway that is consistent with the 2°C limit. Consequently, countries should be considering opportunities to narrow the gap before and after the COP21 summit in Paris.

The 2015 international agreement

UN negotiations are under way to develop a new international climate change agreement that will cover all countries.

The new agreement will be adopted at the Paris climate conference in December 2015 and implemented from 2020. It will take the form of a protocol, another legal instrument or ‘an agreed outcome with legal force’, and will be applicable to all Parties. It is being negotiated through a process known as the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP).

EU vision for the new agreement

The European Commission has set out the EU’s vision for a new agreement that will, through collective commitments based on scientific evidence, put the world on track to reduce global emissions by at least 60% below 2010 levels by 2050.

The EU wants Paris to deliver a robust international agreement that fulfils the following key criteria. It must:

create a common legal framework that applies to all countries

include clear, fair and ambitious targets for all countries based on evolving global economic and national circumstances

hold all countries accountable – to each other and to the public – for meeting their targets

The EU’s contribution to the new agreement will be a binding, economy-wide, domestic greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of at least 40% by 2030.

2015 milestones

The climate conferences in Warsaw (2013) and Lima (2014) agreed that all countries are to put forward their proposed emissions reduction targets for the 2015 agreement as “intended nationally determined contributions” well in advance of the Paris conference.

The contributions will be prepared at national level by each Party, as the EU has done, and submitted to the UNFCCC.

The UNFCCC secretariat will publish these contributions and prepare, by 1 November 2015, a synthesis report to assess whether they put us on track to keep global warming below 2°C.

A negotiating text for the 2015 agreement was agreed in Geneva in February 2015. Before the Paris conference, negotiations will continue at inter-sessional UN meetings in June, September and October in Bonn.

The European Commission has set out the EU’s vision for the new global climate change agreement due to be adopted in Paris in December. The Communication, “The Paris Protocol – a blueprint for tackling global climate change beyond 2020”, is part of the EU’s Energy Union package unveiled by the Commission today. As well as securing Europe’s energy supply, ensuring affordable and competitive energy and an integrated energy system, the strategy also aims to tackle climate change through the transition to a low-carbon, climate-friendly economy.

In October 2014, EU leaders agreed a domestic 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target of at least 40% along with the other main building blocks of the 2030 policy framework. This target will be the European Union’s contribution to the new global climate change agreement. The EU is currently finalising its intended nationally determined contribution (“INDC”), which it will submit to the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by the end of March.

In Paris, this December, the EU is seeking a transparent and dynamic legally binding agreement, containing fair and ambitious commitments from all Parties based on evolving global economic and geopolitical circumstances. Collectively, these commitments − based on scientific evidence − should put the world on track to reduce global emissions by at least 60% below 2010 levels by 2050.

Miguel Arias Cañete, Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy said: “Let’s get down to work. Today we have set the course for a connected, integrated and secure energy market in Europe. Now, let’s make it happen. Our path to real energy security and climate protection begins here at home.”

New study finds Antarctic ice growing, countering earlier studies

By Michael Casey

A new NASA study says that Antarctica is overall accumulating ice. Still, areas of the continent, like the Antarctic Peninsula photographed above, have increased their mass loss in the last decades. (NASA’s Operation IceBridge)

Snow that began piling up 10,000 years ago in Antarctica is adding enough ice to offset the increased losses due to thinning glaciers, according to a NASA study.

The latest findings appear to challenge other studies including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2013 report, which found that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.

“We’re essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island region of West Antarctica,” Jay Zwally, a glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and lead author of the study, which was published on Oct. 30 in the Journal of Glaciology, said in a statement.

Related Image

Expand / Contract

Map showing the rates of mass changes from ICESat 2003-2008 over Antarctica. Sums are for all of Antarctica: East Antarctica (EA, 2-17); interior West Antarctica (WA2, 1, 18, 19, and 23); coastal West Antarctica (WA1, 20-21); and the Antarctic Peninsula (24-27). A gigaton (Gt) corresponds to a billion metric tons, or 1.1 billion U.S. tons. (Jay Zwally/ Journal of Glaciology)

“Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica – there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.” Zwally said, adding that his team “measured small height changes over large areas, as well as the large changes observed over smaller areas.”

According to the new analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008. The mass gain from the thickening of East Antarctica remained steady from 1992 to 2008 at 200 billion tons per year, while the ice losses from the coastal regions of West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula increased by 65 billion tons per year.

To quantify whether ice sheets are growing or shrinking, scientists measure changes in surface height with satellite altimeters. In locations where the amount of new snowfall accumulating on an ice sheet is not equal to the ice flow downward and outward to the ocean, the surface height changes and the ice-sheet mass grows or shrinks.

To assess the amount of snow accumulation, the researchers used meteorological data beginning in 1979 to show that the snowfall in East Antarctica actually decreased by 11 billion tons per year. They also used information on snow accumulation for tens of thousands of years, derived by other scientists from ice cores.

“At the end of the last Ice Age, the air became warmer and carried more moisture across the continent, doubling the amount of snow dropped on the ice sheet,” Zwally said.

The extra snowfall that began 10,000 years ago has been slowly accumulating on the ice sheet and compacting into solid ice over millennia, thickening the ice in East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica by an average of 0.7 inches per year. This small thickening, sustained over thousands of years and spread over the vast expanse of these sectors of Antarctica, corresponds to a very large gain of ice – enough to outweigh the losses from fast-flowing glaciers in other parts of the continent and reduce global sea level rise.

“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away,” Zwally said. “But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for.”

The study has caused quite a stir in the community of scientists who work in Antarctica, with some questioning the reliability of the satellite data and saying it does little to change the narrative that the continent is losing mass.

Others said it demonstrates the challenges of trying to assess the state of ice sheets on such a huge land mass, where time scales and environmental factors often differ marketedly.

A seperate study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters this week found snow accumulation has dramatically increased on West Antarctica’s coastal ice sheet in the 20th century. But one of the study’s authors, Elizabeth Thomas, a paleoclimatologist with the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, said many of the same factors leading to increased snowfall also have been found to be responsible for the thinning of the ice shelves.

“In fact, having more snowfall doesn’t necessarily balance the thinning. They are both a symptom of the same thing,” she told Fox News. “They are connected. Rather than me saying there has been an increase in snow fall and that is a good thing if you like, it’s actually probably a symptom of the same thing. More snowfall probably means more thinning from the wind driven processes.”

Earlier this year, a study in Nature Climate Change found that global sea levels were rising faster than previously thought. Researchers used satellite data combined with tidal gauge information and GPS measurements to overturn previous suggestions that rates had slowed in the past decade.

Another study by Harvard University’s Carling Hay and his colleagues in Nature examined rates of sea level rise before 1990 and found they had been overestimated by about 30 percent. That means the acceleration in sea-level rise in the past two decades is greater than previously thought.

Most researchers blamed the rising seas on melting ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica and shrinking glaciers, triggered by the rise in heat-trapping, greenhouse gas emissions.

But even if Antarctica isn’t part of the mix now, that could change in the future.

“If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase at the same rate they’ve been increasing for the last two decades, the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years – I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses,” said Zwally.

Story 1: Constitutional Crisis: Dictator Obama Expands His Authorities Under Executive Action and Betrays Oath of Office By Making Law And Failing To Enforce Immigration Law, Obama Exceeds His Authorities — Impeach and Convict The Out of Control Dictator and Deport The 30-50 Million Illegal Aliens In The United States — Enforce Immigration Law Not Violate It — Constitutional Political Remedy Is Cut Funding Or Impeachment — Honk Twice For Impeachment! — Videos

“What we’ve done is we’ve expanded my authorities under executive action and prosecutorial discretion as far as we can legally under the existing statute, the existing law. And so now the question is, how can we get a law passed.”

~President Barack Obama

“When the government fears the people, there is liberty.

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

~President Thomas Jefferson

The Constitution of the United States

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article. I.

Section. 1.

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. …

Section. 3.

… The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law. ”’

Section. 7.

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law. …

Article. II.

Section. 1.

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows …

Section. 4.

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Article. IV.

Section. 4.

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence. …

Congress Punts: Keeps Homeland Security Funded For 7 Days

Obama Accuses GOP of Holding DHS Hostage Over Immigration

Obama To Congress: Pass Immigration Reform Law | msnbc

Immigration Reform Will Move Forward Despite Courts | msnbc

Gowdy Warns Democrats on Obama’s Immigration Orders

In his opening statement at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday on President Barack Obama’s immigration executive orders, Rep. Trey Gowdy again hammered the administration for ignoring the rule of law while warning Democrats of the long-term consequences of Obama’s actions.

Rep. Gowdy’s Questioning at Hearing on Immigration Executive Actions

Rep. Gowdy’s questioning at House Judiciary Committee at House Judiciary Committee Hearing “The Unconstitutionality of Obama’s Executive Actions on Immigration.”

Gohmert: The Unconstitutionality of Obama’s Executive Actions on Immigration

Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX-01) attended a House Judiciary Hearing and talked to witnesses about the unconstitutionality of President Obama’s royal decree – to give amnesty to millions in the U.S. illegally.

Andrew McCarthy Obama Committed Serial Fraud Impeachment Is a Remedy

The Obama administration’s claims of enforcing strict deportation standards were undercut Monday with the release of a report showing that 68,000 illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds were set free last year

Andrew C. McCarthy: Faithless Execution: Building a Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment

Andy McCarthy Talks Obama Impeachment – TheBlaze

OBAMA IMPEACHMENT over U.S. Immigration Reform Coming Soon?

John Boehner Blows Kisses to the Press, Won’t Budge on DHS

Gohmert Talks to The Blaze About DHS Senate Cave

Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX-01) spoke to Dana Loesch about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell looking to avert a shutdown by offering Democrats a clean funding bill for DHS – that does not defund President Obama’s amnesty.

Reid, Pelosi Point Finger at GOP on DHS Funding

President Obama Stops Into Miami For Immigration Town Hall At FIU

Trey Gowdy Reacts To President Obama’s Illegal Immigration Executive Order

President Obama To Hold Immigration Town Hall At FIU

Full Video: Obama’s Immigration Town Hall | msnbc

Reid Opposes DHS CR, Criticizes Republican Majority for Inaction

President Obama To Hold Immigration Town Hall At FIU

“So in the short term, if Mr. McConnell, the leader of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, want to have a vote on whether what I’m doing is legal or not, they can have that vote. I will veto that vote, because I’m absolutely confident that what we’re doing is the right thing to do.”

“What we’ve done is we’ve expanded my authorities under executive action and prosecutorial discretion as far as we can legally under the existing statute, the existing law. And so now the question is, how can we get a law passed.”

“So in the short term, if Mr. McConnell, the leader of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, want to have a vote on whether what I’m doing is legal or not, they can have that vote. I will veto that vote, because I’m absolutely confident that what we’re doing is the right thing to do.”

Obama argued that he has merely “expanded my authorities” – not broken any laws:

“What we’ve done is we’ve expanded my authorities under executive action and prosecutorial discretion as far as we can legally under the existing statute, the existing law. And so now the question is, how can we get a law passed.”

Obama called the “political process” a “separate track”:

So we’re going to have to keep on with the political process on a separate track. But in the meantime, we’re going to do everything that we can to make sure that we implement executive actions as we’ve discussed.

In addition to these “shortcuts,” the immigration law must be changed, as well, Obama said:

“There are only so many shortcuts. Ultimately, we have to change the law. And people have to remain focused on that.”

Fifty-one percent (51%) of women approve of the job the president is doing. Fifty-three percent (53%) of men disapprove.

The latest figures include 23% of all likely voters who Strongly Approve of the way Obama is performing as president and 36% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13.

To get a sense of longer-term job approval trends for the president, Rasmussen Reports compiles our tracking data on a full month-by-month basis.

Rasmussen Reports has been a pioneer in the use of automated telephone polling techniques, but many other firms still utilize their own operator-assisted technology (see methodology).

Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 400 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. To reach those who have abandoned traditional landline telephones, Rasmussen Reports uses an online survey tool to interview randomly selected participants from a demographically diverse panel. The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 1,200 Likely Voters is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for full-week results are available for Platinum Members.

Multiple surveys of U.S. public opinion have found that the clear majority of Americans reject the idea of impeaching the President while most Republicans have been in favor; for example, CNN found in July 2014 that 57% of Republicans supported efforts while about two thirds of adult Americans in general disagreed.[3]

Suggestions of impeachment

In October 2010, prior to the elections in which Republicans won control of the House, Jonathan Chait published an article in The New Republic called “Scandal TBD” where he predicted that if Republicans were to win control of the House, and Barack Obama were to win re-election in 2012, the Republicans would try to impeach Obama and use any reason possible as pretext.[4]

In August 2011, Republican Congressman Michael C. Burgess of Texas stated that the impeachment of Barack Obama “needs to happen” in order to prevent Obama from “pushing his agenda”. Burgess did not mention any grounds for impeachment.[7] In June 2012, Senator Jon Kyl said on the Bill Bennettradio show that “impeachment is always a possibility” when discussing the Obama Administration policy on immigration.[8]

May 2013: James Inhofe, Benghazi attack

In May 2013, Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma stated that President Obama “could be impeached over what he alleged was a White House cover-up after last year’s attack in Benghazi, Libya”.[2] Inhofe said that “of all the great cover-ups in history—the Pentagon papers, Iran-Contra, Watergate, all the rest of them—this … is going to go down as most egregious cover-up in American history”.[2] Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah also stated in an interview that impeachment was “within the realm of possibilities” with regard to the September 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi, Libya, later clarifying that “it’s not something I’m seeking” and that “I’m not willing to take that off the table. But that’s certainly not what we’re striving for.”[9]

August 2013: Tom Coburn, Blake Farenthold, Kerry Bentivolio

In August 2013, Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma responded to a questioner in a town hall meeting, who had asserted that President Obama was failing to carry out his constitutional responsibilities, by saying that “you have to establish the criteria that would qualify for proceedings against the president… and that’s called impeachment”.[10][11] Coburn added, “I don’t have the legal background to know if that rises to ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’, but I think you’re getting perilously close”.[10] Coburn did not specify what grounds he felt would support impeachment, but NBC News noted that Coburn “mentioned that he believes Department of Homeland Security officials have told career USCIS employees to ‘ignore’ background checks for immigrants”. Coburn mentioned no evidence that substantiated his belief.[10]

On August 19, 2013, Republican Congressman Kerry Bentivolio stated that if he could write articles of impeachment, “it would be a dream come true”. To help in achieving that goal, he retained experts and historians.[13][14]

December 2013

On December 3, 2013, the House Judiciary committee held a hearing on the President that was formally titled “The President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws”, which has been viewed as an attempt to begin justifying impeachment proceedings.[15]

Public debate over impeachment demands

In terms of background, U.S. public opinion widely opposed efforts made to impeach previous Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. CNN Polling Director Keating Holland has stated that their organization found that 69% opposed impeaching President Bush in 2006.[3]

According to a July 2014 YouGov poll, 35% of Americans believe the president should be impeached, including 68% of Republicans.[16] Later that month, a CNN survey found that about two thirds of adult Americans disagreed with impeachment efforts. The data showed intense partisan divides, with 57% of Republicans supporting the efforts compared to only 35% of independents and 13% of Democrats.[3]

The convention of the South Dakota Republican Party voted in a 196-176 resolution to call for the impeachment of Obama based on his action to release five detainees from Guantanamo Bay in order to free Bowe Bergdahl from his Taliban captors.[17][18] Former Congressmember Allen West also expressed the view that the prisoner exchange that brought the release of Bowe Bergdahl was grounds for impeachment.[19]John Dean, former White House Counsel to Richard Nixon, criticized the movement to impeach Obama as “insanity,” arguing that Republican demands for impeachment are grounded in political disagreements rather than actual impeachable offenses. “Partisans promoting and pushing impeachment as a political solution to being out of power seem to forget that what comes around goes around. These people are not conservatives, who by definition seek to protect the system; rather they are radicals who are gaming our constitutional system,” he wrote.[20]

A number of prominent Republicans have rejected calls for impeachment, including House SpeakerJohn Boehner, Sen. John McCain and Rep. Blake Farenthold. McCain said impeachment would be a distraction from the 2014 election, and that if “we regain control of the United States Senate we can be far more effective than an effort to impeach the president, which has no chance of succeeding.” Farenthold said that impeachment would be “an exercise in futility.”[26]

Boehner put to vote an authorization for the House of Representatives to file a lawsuit against President Obama for delaying the implementation of the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Political commentators have speculated that he proposed this lawsuit to divert recent Republican calls for impeachment, which would delight Democrats if pursued. In the words of Clarence Page in a Chicago Tribune editorial about calls for impeachment, “Democrats can barely conceal their glee. It’s hard to think of anything that would give a bigger boost to the Democrats”.[27]

Roll Call‘s David Hawkings likewise described the calls for impeachment as “politically problematic” for Republicans. Hawkings noted that the plan for suing Obama sends a “decidedly mixed message” since Republicans themselves previously “passed legislation specifically written to codify the president’s employer mandate delay”. He also criticized the move as not likely to have legal standing since the plaintiffs would have to demonstrate that “they’ve been tangibly harmed” beyond the “loss of political or institutional clout”. Additionally, the lawsuit would not be filed until more than a year after the President issued the postponement of the employer mandate, and the lawsuit might also be considered moot by then because the postponement may have already expired. With “almost no chance for even a preliminary resolution before the midterm elections“, Hawkings concluded the intent of Republicans is not a successful lawsuit but rather an opportunity for focusing their “red meat rhetoric” and “venting their bloodlust” before the elections.[28]